The Polynesian languages are a language family spoken in geographical Polynesia and on a patchwork of "Outliers" from south central Micronesia, to small islands off the northeast of the larger islands of the Southeast Solomon Islands and sprinkled through Vanuatu. They are classified as part of the Austronesian family, belonging to the Oceanic branch of that family. Polynesians share many unique cultural traits that resulted from about 1000 years of common development, including common linguistic development, in the Tonga and Samoa area through most of the first millennium BC.