The Eastern Malayo-Polynesian (EMP) languages form a putative subgroup of the Malayo-Polynesian languages consisting of over 500 languages. Their relationship is not supported by much linguistic data: per Malcolm Ross, there is "essentially no evidence" that the Halmahera–Cenderawasih (South Halmahera – West New Guinea) and Oceanic families form an exclusive clade within Malayo-Polynesian, while a 2008 analysis of the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database gives the proposal a confidence level of only 58%.
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