Borneo-Philippines Outer Hesperonesian Outer Western Malayo-Polynesian
Geographic distribution:	Southeast Asia and Madagascar
Genetic classification:	Austronesian  Paiwanic ?   Malayo-Polynesian    Borneo-Philippines
Subdivisions:	Philippine North Bornean Sama-Bajaw Land Dayak Kayan West Barito Mahakam East Barito
The Borneo-Philippines languages (red). Not shown: Yami in Taiwan.

The Borneo-Philippines languages (also known as Outer Hesperonesian or Outer Western Malayo-Polynesian languages) are a putative branch of the Austronesian family which includes the languages of the Philippines, much of Borneo, the northern peninsula of Sulawesi, and Madagascar.

In this classification, the previously posited clade of Western Malayo-Polynesian (WMP), also known as Hesperonesian, has been broken up into "outer" (Borneo-Philippines) and "inner" (Sunda-Sulawesi) clades, and Western Malayo-Polynesian is considered merely a geographic term (Wouk and Ross 2002). These are both remnant groups: the Borneo-Philippine languages are those Malayo-Polynesian languages which are not included in Nuclear Malayo-Polynesian, and the Sunda-Sulawesi languages are those Nuclear MP languages which are not included in Central-Eastern MP. Indeed, a 2008 analysis of the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database supported at a 98% confidence level that the Bornean languages, regardless of whether they themselves are a valid unit, form an exclusive unit with Nuclear MP, whereas Sama-Bajaw is more closely related to the Philippine languages.

[edit] References

• Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database
• Fay Wouk and Malcolm Ross (ed.), The history and typology of western Austronesian voice systems. Australian National University, 2002.
• K. Alexander Adelaar and Nikolaus Himmelmann, The Austronesian languages of Asia and Madagascar. Routledge, 2005.