Proto-Malayo-Polynesian, abbreviated PMP, is the reconstructed ancestor of the Malayo-Polynesian languages, by far the largest branch by speaker count of the Austronesian family, and is ancestral to every Austronesian language spoken outside Taiwan as well as the Yami language of Taiwan's Orchid Island. Its first systematic reconstruction was produced by Otto Dempwolff between 1934 and 1937 in his Vergleichende Lautlehre des austronesischen Wortschatzes; because Dempwolff worked only from languages outside Taiwan, what he presented as a reconstruction of Proto-Austronesian is now recognized as actually a reconstruction of Proto-Malayo-Polynesian specifically. A homeland in the Luzon Strait, the channel between Taiwan and the Philippines, has been proposed for its speakers, though the exact location remains uncertain.
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