Akar Nusa
A boat is pulled up on a pebbled beach in northern Taiwan. A family loads pots, seed and fire. The horizon is empty. They push off anyway.
The story
Malay belongs to a big family called Austronesian, and so do the languages of the Proto-Malay Orang Asli and many others across the islands. Scholars have long asked where it began. Ko and others (2014) say linguistic and archaeological evidence points to Taiwan as the origin of the Austronesian languages and their speakers. Genes had been harder to read.
So the team sequenced the complete mitochondrial DNA (the mother-line DNA) of an 8,000-year-old skeleton from Liang Island, between China and Taiwan. They also studied 550 mother-line genomes from Taiwan's highland Formosan groups and others. The ancient person's DNA was closest to modern Formosans and linked to southern China. It also carried the oldest form of a mother-line family called haplogroup E found in living Austronesian speakers.
Their analysis suggests early Austronesians reached northern Taiwan about 6,000 years ago, spread south fast, and left Taiwan about 4,000 years ago to settle Island Southeast Asia, Madagascar and Oceania.
Wikipedia's summary of the field calls this "Out of Taiwan" model the mainstream view, first proposed by Peter Bellwood. It says people reached the Batanes Islands in the northern Philippines by about 2200 BCE, around 4,200 years ago. From there the story continued south through the Philippines and towards Borneo and the Peninsula.
Not everything is settled. Wikipedia notes that the DNA model assumes a view of how Austronesian languages are grouped that some scholars do not share, and dates shift as new finds appear.
The story is also one of mixing. Lipson and others (2018) found that Southeast Asia received several waves of people over time, not just one. The Austronesian sailors met, traded with and married into communities already living on the islands, so the sea journey became part of many local stories.
Where you can still see it today
- In the words. Malay and the Formosan languages of Taiwan belong to the same family. Listen for echoes, and ask a language teacher to compare them with you.
- In museums. Look for Taiwanese, Philippine and Malaysian collections of sea tools and pottery.
- At the coast. Stand on a beach and imagine the first crossing; the family of languages that followed it is spoken around you.
What DNA can tell, and what it cannot
A region estimate may show links to Taiwan and the Philippines in many Malaysians, and some mother lines (such as the E family) are found among Austronesian speakers. Wikipedia notes Orang Asli show some Austronesian admixture, which fits the Peninsula's mixed layers.
DNA cannot decide whether a person is Malay, Orang Asli, Iban or any other community. It cannot decide race, religion or bumiputera status. It shows an old road. Languages and traditions are carried by families, not by a gene.
