The Austronesian language family is one of the most widely, geographically distributed language groups extending from Madagascar in the west, Easter Island in the east, Hawai`i in the north and New Zealand in the south. The Austronesian language family comprises of four main branches: Atayalic, Paiwanic, Tsouic and Malayo-Polynesian, the first three of which are found on the island of Formosa (or Taiwan), and therefore placed beneath the top-level category "Formosan". All other languages fall beneath Malayo-Polynesian, which has been subdivided into Eastern, Central and Western language groups.
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