Talk:Polynesians

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 24 August 2021 and 17 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Ktaito.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 06:55, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

this list of ethnic groups is a mess and un-encylipidic for the time being
the list of ethnic groups needs to have order its a mess a big jumble cant we at least group them into groups so that readers can be more informed about the Polynesian people diaspora? also needs a secondary list for extinct Polynesian peoples such at ethnic Hawaiians (indigenous natives of Hawaii and so on for the rest of the extinct Polynesian tribes 76.244.151.164 (talk) 15:21, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

why doesnt it have fijians??
97.126.145.25 (talk) 19:27, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Because they are not Polynesian but Melanesian and proud of it. Polynesia is defined mainly by culture language - and although the Fijian languages are closely related to Polynesian, they are not Polynesian because they do not derive from Proto-Polynesian. Kahuroa (talk) 09:30, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress which affects this page. Please participate at Talk:Tahitians - Requested move and not in this talk page section. Thank you. 06:39, 30 July 2012 (UTC) There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Tahitians which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 18:49, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Copyvio removed
I've removed content that was copy/pasted from this PNAS publication. Those interested are welcome to rewrite the content to avoid copyright violation and re-add properly referenced to the source. Vsmith (talk) 19:03, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

History section: Confusion between Polynesians and their ancestors
As I understand it, the Polynesians as a people date to only a few thousand years ago. The people who "arrived in the Bismarck Archipelago of Papua New Guinea at least 6,000 to 8,000 years ago" were ancestral to the Polynesians, but not Polynesians themselves. When you look at all the related, but non-Polynesian peoples between the Bismarck Archipelago and Polynesia, you have to wonder where and when you can talk about the emergence of the true Polynesians. Which is another problem: an article about a people should have more about when and where and how that people appeared as something separate from other related peoples. All we have here is vague talk about the prehistory of Oceania and the Austronesians.

At the very least, the introductory paragraph (which seems to have been lifted whole from the Sundaland article, or added by the same person to both) should be removed or completely rewritten, since it deals with events thousands of years before anyone could be remotely describable as Polynesians. As it stands now, it's self-contradictory, since "drowning" a "peninsula" doesn't "extend" a "landmass", but it would better fix the whole thing than just that sentence. To keep the paragraph, we would have to add an explanation of how the end of the last ice age was connected to the emergence of the Polynesian people somewhere else more than 5,000 years later.

On the whole, this article is an almost-embarrassing stub compared to the treatment at Polynesia. Someone needs to harmonize the two by improving this one. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:21, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
 * In fact, even if the issue were not so obviously based on a misunderstanding (the old "Anglo-Saxon cavemen" fallacy, as I have started to dub it since it is so pervasive in pop-prehistory: that Britain was settled by humans at least 10,000 years ago doesn't mean that the Anglo-Saxon/English ethnicity goes equally far back), the introduction of recent and sensational research touted as spectacularly refuting a long-established theory (model) is a classic case of recentism. That's why we have WP:PRIMARY: we are supposed to tread lightly with regard to recent research which has not been properly assessed and reviewed yet, and the omission of sceptical or negative reception is plain dishonest; after all, just because a paper has been published in a respected magazine does not mean that its conclusions cannot be wrong. Just think of the OPERA affair. In fields such as physics where we have enough experts, such tabloid reporting would never be tolerated.
 * Actually, I wonder if it would not be better to simply redirect this page to Polynesia, since it offers next to no useful additional information, but only disinformation instead. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:57, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
 * This. And it is still going on. The Out-of-Sundaland hypothesis is actually not supported by archaeological or linguistic evidence. And it only uses mtDNA (i.e. traceable through the female line only). It's been refuted by at least two papers that I know of that use full-genome analysis since it was published. This practice of copy-pasting the entire text ("evolving within Island Southeast Asia (ISEA) for a longer period than previously believed", etc.) has to stop. It deserves a mention yes. But per WP:DUE it must not be wrongly implied as to have overturned the more widely accepted and supported Out-of-Taiwan hypothesis. Neither does it mean that Polynesians are not Austronesians. -- O BSIDIAN  †  S OUL  21:54, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Chamorros are not polynesian
Chamorros are not linguistically and culturally or even look remotely Polynesian, although both are Austronesians and lived on islands doesn't mean they are Polynesians. Fijians are closer to Polynesians than to Chamorros. Look at the language, Chamorro is listed as part of Sunda-Sulawesi group of languages, which means they are closer to Southeast Asian Austronesians (Filipinos,Borneans,Malays,Javanese etc) than to Polynesians. I hope you check much deeper about Chamorros.

Anonymous — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.9.97.237 (talk) 03:40, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Number of Polynesian Americans
I have a tough time buying that there are only 300,000 Polynesians in the United States, seeing as the largest Polynesian island chain is actually part of the United States. --SchutteGod (not logged in) 70.181.183.169 (talk) 02:35, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Hawaiki
Is Hawaiki just the mystical home of Maori people or of all polynesians? If the last is right, it would be nice to add some information about Polynesian culture and religion in it. --Die Mathematik (talk) 22:56, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Polynesians. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130207215244/http://www.dol.govt.nz/publications/research/population-movement-pacific-perspective-future-prospects/05.asp to http://www.dol.govt.nz/publications/research/population-movement-pacific-perspective-future-prospects/05.asp
 * Added tag to http://wwwgordonconwell.com/netcommunity/CSGCResources/ChristianityinitsGlobalContext.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20150713121627/https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=wSeSv6qWoroC&pg=PA105&dq=very+few+successful+East+Asian+women+polynesian&hl=en&sa=X&ei=mIHbVKjqM8ndPeCEgbAM&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAA to https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=wSeSv6qWoroC&pg=PA105&dq=very+few+successful+East+Asian+women+polynesian&hl=en&sa=X&ei=mIHbVKjqM8ndPeCEgbAM&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAA

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 13:32, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

the Americas
almost every website and book out there says that the Polynesians only reached Easter Island as their easternmost voyage. Kika.txt (talk) 02:52, 17 February 2020 (UTC)


 * They are not known to have colonised any land east of Easter Island. It is postulated by many anthropologists -- and hotly contested by many others -- that Polynesians did make landfall on South America. The primary evidence is that sweet potato, native to South America has been a food staple in Polynesia since pre-Columbian times. Those facts are mostly uncontested. The other, and far more controversial claim is that chickens were in pre-Columbian south America, brought there by the polynesians.

Firejuggler86 (talk) 00:34, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 12:53, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Early stages of the Austronesian diaspora showing best-fit genomic proportions of Austronesian-speaking peoples in ISEA and their inferred population movements.png

Rotumans
The Rotumans are not part of the Polynesian ethnolinguistic group. They are a hybrid culture --Theudariks 2.0 (talk) 23:22, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Fiji islands
Why Fiji haven't their language 2A02:587:983A:3200:F142:C2D:7651:FE07 (talk) 08:14, 15 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Fiji is Melanesian, not Polynesian. There are aspects of Polynesian culture in Fiji, but the language is definitely Melanesian Theudariks 2.0 (talk) 02:42, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Religion
Probably need a better source on Polynesians being 96% Christian. Māori make up a sizable chunk of Polynesians (there's like 900,000 of us) and roughly half of us are irreligious. That's a lot more than 4% of Polynesians lol Bob27271912 (talk) 08:58, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Chile
Chiles polynesian population seems random and wrong. Should't it be the number of Rapa Nui people or population of Easter Island. AnonRed96 (talk) 19:56, 4 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Yes, it should be backed by a source referring to the number of Rapa Nui people. Skimel (talk) 14:39, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Food 2601:645:C47F:CD70:115B:D1:5466:11D2 (talk) 17:34, 30 January 2024 (UTC)