The Central Philippine languages are the most geographically widespread demonstrated group of languages in the Philippines, being spoken in southern Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao, and Sulu.
Blust (2009) notes that the relatively low diversity found among the Visayan languages is due to recent population expansions.
[2] The expanded tree of the Central Philippine languages below is given in David Zorc's 1977 Ph.D.
Instead, he groups Mansakan, Mamanwa and the Southern Bisayan languages together into an "East Mindanao" subgroup, which links up with the remaining Bisayan branches in a "South Central Philippine" subgroup:[20] Blust (1991)[21] notes that the central and southern Philippines has low linguistic diversity.
Based on exclusively shared lexical innovations, he posits a Greater Central Philippine subgroup that puts together the Central Philippine branch with South Mangyan, Palawan, Danao, Manobo, Subanon and Gorontalo–Mongondow languages, the latter found in northern Sulawesi.