Dyen Isidore. The Lexicostatistical Classification of the Austronesian Languages

New Haven: Yale University, 1963. — xxii + 93 p.This is a seminal essay by Isidore Dyen (1913-2008), Professor Emeritus of Malayo-Polynesian and Comparative Linguistics at Yale University (New Haven, Connecticut, USA). He was one of the foremost scholars in the field of Austronesian linguistics, publishing extensively on the reconstruction of Proto-Austronesian phonology and on subgrouping within the language family, the latter principally by means of lexicostatistics, i.e. a method of comparative linguistics that involves comparing the percentage of lexical cognates between languages to determine their relationship. In this essay statistical data dealing with basic vocabulary comparisons among a significant group of Austronesian languages are presented. Some of the languages aee classified into subgroups under geographical divisions, and other are regarded as subgroups in themselves. The languages covered in the study stretch geographically from Madagascar to Easter Island and from Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and Hawaii on the North to Indonesia, New Zealand, and Polynesia in the South.