Echoes of Ancestral Voices: Comparing languages of the Austronesian family | PGO 2021

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Echoes of Ancestral Voices: Comparing languages of the Austronesian family from Madagascar to Polynesia - Brian Loo Soon Hua

With over 1,000 languages, the Austronesian family is one of the largest language families on Earth and during pre-Columbian times was the most geographically widespread – stretching from East Africa to Southeast Asia to the most distant shores of Polynesia. Spread by ancient seafarers with sophisticated sailing technology, the various daughter languages all evolved from the same proto-language believed to have been spoken in Taiwan thousands of years ago.
This presentation will include a pre-recorded conversation between native speakers from various Austronesian-speaking countries: a Madagascan, a Chamorro from Guam, a Polynesian and a Malaysian as they compare the meanings of words in their languages that have remained relatively unchanged for thousands of years.

Brian Loo Soon Hua is a polyglot, linguist and translator with a keen interest in history and anthropology. He has the distinction of being the first (and probably only) Malaysian to study both Native American and Australian Aboriginal languages. He works at uTalk and enjoys hiking and cooking spicy Southeast Asian cuisine in his free time.

Website: languagestolearn.com

This video was recorded at the Polyglot Gathering Online 2021 (https://www.polyglotgathering.com).