malayo-polynesian

Questions about malayo-polynesian

What does malayo-polynesian mean?

malayo-polynesian means "the branch of the Austronesian languages spoken from Madagascar to the central Pacific". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in malayo-polynesian?

malayo-polynesian has 7 syllables and divides as ma-la-yo--po-ly-ne-sian under the regular spelling rules. It is not in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, so that comes from how the word is written rather than from a recorded pronunciation, and no stress or phonetic transcription is claimed for it.

What is another word for malayo-polynesian?

Close synonyms include Polynesian. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is malayo-polynesian a common word?

malayo-polynesian is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.