Indo-Pacific languages
Encyclopedia
Indo-Pacific is a hypothetical language macrofamily
proposed in 1971 by Joseph Greenberg
. Supporters of Indo-Pacific see it as an extremely ancient and internally diverse family. It would group into a single language family all of the Papuan languages of New Guinea
and Melanesia
except those belonging to the well-established Austronesian
family, and also includes the languages of the Andaman Islands
and the languages of Tasmania
, both of which are remote from New Guinea. Greenberg explicitly excludes from Indo-Pacific the languages of Australia. The hypothesis is not widely accepted, since it was based on rough estimation of lexical similarity and typological similarity. New Guinea is often seen as a case of extreme diversity of language lineages by worldwide standards. Stephen Wurm's Trans–New Guinea languages family, distinct from Greenberg's Indo-Pacific hypothesis, is a more widely entertained proposal.
, "In 1971 Greenberg presented evidence that the non-Austronesian languages of New Guinea – as well as certain languages on islands to the east and west of New Guinea – belong to an extremely diverse and ancient family that he named Indo-Pacific." In Ruhlen's view, Indo-Pacific is clearly much more ancient than Austronesian, which reflects a migration from southeast Asia that began only 6 000 years ago; he notes that New Guinea was inhabited by modern humans at least 40 000 years ago, and possibly 10 000 to 15 000 years earlier than that. Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza
describes Indo-Pacific as a very heterogenous family of 700 languages and suggests that it may be more than 40 000 years old.
Ruhlen has attempted to broadly outline the history of the migrations that he believes produced Indo-Pacific and the world's other language families. Modern humans would have had a homeland in Africa
. Shortly after 100 0000 BP (before the present) a group of modern humans migrated out of Africa, spreading first to the Near East
, then beyond to Southeast Asia
and Oceania
. The first of these migrations separated sub-Saharan Africans from all other humans, while the second lead to the populations of Southeast Asia, New Guinea, and Australia. The Indo-Pacific family, like the indigenous Australian languages, would have had its origins in the second of these two early divisions in the human family tree.
, including the reconstruction of a protolanguage. The greatest controversy concerns the geographic outliers, Andamanese and Tasmanian. The Ongan languages
may form part of a family with Austronesian
, and thus not be part of Indo-Pacific (Blevins, 2007). The languages of Tasmania are extinct and so poorly attested that many historical linguists regard them as unclassifiable. Roger Blench
calls Indo-Pacific "one of the more improbable macrophyla hypotheses in linguistics", observing that while it "purported to be a purely linguistic exercise...it conveniently swept up all the languages of the crinklyhaired populations in the region that were not clearly Austronesian." He writes that despite decades of further research into Papuan languages
and prehistory, Indo-Pacific still has "almost no assent from specialists in the field" and that it "only exists in the eye of the believer."
Since Greenberg's work, the languages of New Guinea have been intensively studied by Stephen Wurm
. Ruhlen writes that Wurm's Trans–New Guinea languages family includes about 70 percent of the languages Greenberg included in Indo-Pacific, though the internal classification is entirely different. Wurm states that the lexical similarities between Great Andamanese and the West Papuan
(which is not part of Trans–New Guinea) and certain languages of Timor
"are quite striking and amount to virtual formal identity […] in a number of instances", but considers this to be due to a linguistic substratum
rather than a direct relationship.
. SOV word order
is the most common. (O'Grady et al. 1997:400.)
and other families", but adds that "...there do appear to be some threads connecting Indo-Pacific with the world's other language families, threads that further research can be expected to strengthen." He sees this lack of evidence as the result partly of our general lack of knowledge of these languages and the almost complete lack of meaningful historical studies of them, and partly due to the "truly great linguistic diversity" of New Guinea. Ruhlen gives the Southern Tasmanian mo-took (forefinger), the Southeastern Tasmanian togue (hand), the Proto-Karonan *dik (one), the Boven Mbian tek (fingernail), and the Digul tuk (fingernail) as examples of forms that may be related to tik, a widespread root "whose original meaning was probably 'finger'." According to him, the root can also be found in Nilo-Saharan
, Niger–Kordofanian, Afroasiatic, Eurasiatic
, Dené–Caucasian, Austric
, and Amerind
.
Ruhlen regards pal, meaning two, as another common root in the world's languages; within Indo-Pacific, related forms with the same meaning in the Andamanese languages include Biada's (ik)pāūr(-da), Kede's (ír-)pōl, Chariar's (nér-)pól, and Juwoi's (ró-)pāūr, related forms with the same meaning in Tasmania include Southeastern Tasmanian's boula ~ bura and Southern Tasmanian's pooalih, and related forms with the same meaning in New Guinea include Ndani's bere and Sauweri's pere. According to him, similar forms can also be found outside Indo-Pacific in Australian, Nilo-Saharan, Niger–Kordofanian, Afroasiatic, Eurasiatic, Dravidian
, Austric, and Amerind, although its meaning has changed significantly in some of these families.
This classification was never widely accepted, and has largely been supplanted by that of Stephen Wurm. They do not generally agree well. For example:
The few similarities are retentions from earlier linguists' work:
Macrofamily
In historical linguistics, a macro-family, also called a superfamily or phylum, is defined as a proposed genetic relationship grouping together language families in a larger scale clasification.However, Campbell regards this term as superfluous, preferring language family for those clasifications...
proposed in 1971 by Joseph Greenberg
Joseph Greenberg
Joseph Harold Greenberg was a prominent and controversial American linguist, principally known for his work in two areas, linguistic typology and the genetic classification of languages.- Early life and career :...
. Supporters of Indo-Pacific see it as an extremely ancient and internally diverse family. It would group into a single language family all of the Papuan languages of New Guinea
New Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
and Melanesia
Melanesia
Melanesia is a subregion of Oceania extending from the western end of the Pacific Ocean to the Arafura Sea, and eastward to Fiji. The region comprises most of the islands immediately north and northeast of Australia...
except those belonging to the well-established Austronesian
Austronesian languages
The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia that are spoken by about 386 million people. It is on par with Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Afroasiatic and Uralic as one of the...
family, and also includes the languages of the Andaman Islands
Andamanese languages
The Andamanese languages form a proposed language family spoken by the Andamanese peoples, a group of Negritos who live in the Andaman Islands, a union territory of India. Its validity is disputed...
and the languages of Tasmania
Tasmanian languages
The Tasmanian languages, or Palawa languages, were the languages indigenous to the island of Tasmania. Based on short wordlists, it appears that there were anywhere from five to sixteen languages on Tasmania....
, both of which are remote from New Guinea. Greenberg explicitly excludes from Indo-Pacific the languages of Australia. The hypothesis is not widely accepted, since it was based on rough estimation of lexical similarity and typological similarity. New Guinea is often seen as a case of extreme diversity of language lineages by worldwide standards. Stephen Wurm's Trans–New Guinea languages family, distinct from Greenberg's Indo-Pacific hypothesis, is a more widely entertained proposal.
Outline
According to Merritt RuhlenMerritt Ruhlen
Merritt Ruhlen is an American linguist known for his work on the classification of languages and what this reveals about the origin and evolution of modern humans. Amongst other linguists, Ruhlen's work is recognized as standing outside the mainstream of comparative-historical linguistics...
, "In 1971 Greenberg presented evidence that the non-Austronesian languages of New Guinea – as well as certain languages on islands to the east and west of New Guinea – belong to an extremely diverse and ancient family that he named Indo-Pacific." In Ruhlen's view, Indo-Pacific is clearly much more ancient than Austronesian, which reflects a migration from southeast Asia that began only 6 000 years ago; he notes that New Guinea was inhabited by modern humans at least 40 000 years ago, and possibly 10 000 to 15 000 years earlier than that. Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza
Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza
Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza is an Italian population geneticist born in Genoa, who has been a professor at Stanford University since 1970 .-Books:...
describes Indo-Pacific as a very heterogenous family of 700 languages and suggests that it may be more than 40 000 years old.
Ruhlen has attempted to broadly outline the history of the migrations that he believes produced Indo-Pacific and the world's other language families. Modern humans would have had a homeland in Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
. Shortly after 100 0000 BP (before the present) a group of modern humans migrated out of Africa, spreading first to the Near East
Near East
The Near East is a geographical term that covers different countries for geographers, archeologists, and historians, on the one hand, and for political scientists, economists, and journalists, on the other...
, then beyond to Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...
and Oceania
Oceania
Oceania is a region centered on the islands of the tropical Pacific Ocean. Conceptions of what constitutes Oceania range from the coral atolls and volcanic islands of the South Pacific to the entire insular region between Asia and the Americas, including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago...
. The first of these migrations separated sub-Saharan Africans from all other humans, while the second lead to the populations of Southeast Asia, New Guinea, and Australia. The Indo-Pacific family, like the indigenous Australian languages, would have had its origins in the second of these two early divisions in the human family tree.
Reception
The Indo-Pacific proposal was based on rough estimation of lexical similarity and typological similarity and has not reached a stage where it can be confirmed by the standard comparative methodComparative method
In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor, as opposed to the method of internal reconstruction, which analyzes the internal...
, including the reconstruction of a protolanguage. The greatest controversy concerns the geographic outliers, Andamanese and Tasmanian. The Ongan languages
Ongan languages
Ongan, or South Andamanese, is a small family of two languages, Önge and Jarawa, spoken in the southern Andaman Islands:*Ongan**Önge or Onge; 96 speakers in 1997, mostly monolingual...
may form part of a family with Austronesian
Austronesian languages
The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia that are spoken by about 386 million people. It is on par with Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Afroasiatic and Uralic as one of the...
, and thus not be part of Indo-Pacific (Blevins, 2007). The languages of Tasmania are extinct and so poorly attested that many historical linguists regard them as unclassifiable. Roger Blench
Roger Blench
Roger Blench is a British linguist, ethnomusicologist and development anthropologist. He has an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and remains based in Cambridge, England...
calls Indo-Pacific "one of the more improbable macrophyla hypotheses in linguistics", observing that while it "purported to be a purely linguistic exercise...it conveniently swept up all the languages of the crinklyhaired populations in the region that were not clearly Austronesian." He writes that despite decades of further research into Papuan languages
Papuan languages
The Papuan languages are those languages of the western Pacific which are neither Austronesian nor Australian. The term does not presuppose a genetic relationship. The concept of Papuan peoples as distinct from Melanesians was first suggested and named by Sidney Herbert Ray in 1892.-The...
and prehistory, Indo-Pacific still has "almost no assent from specialists in the field" and that it "only exists in the eye of the believer."
Since Greenberg's work, the languages of New Guinea have been intensively studied by Stephen Wurm
Stephen Wurm
Stephen Adolphe Wurm was a Hungarian-born Australian linguist.- Biography :Wurm was born in Budapest, the second child to the German-speaking Adolphe Wurm and Hungarian-speaking Anna Novroczky, and was christened Istvan Adolphe Wurm...
. Ruhlen writes that Wurm's Trans–New Guinea languages family includes about 70 percent of the languages Greenberg included in Indo-Pacific, though the internal classification is entirely different. Wurm states that the lexical similarities between Great Andamanese and the West Papuan
West Papuan languages
The West Papuan languages are a hypothetical language family of about two dozen Papuan languages of the Bird's Head Peninsula of far western New Guinea and the island of Halmahera, spoken by about 220 000 people in all....
(which is not part of Trans–New Guinea) and certain languages of Timor
Timor
Timor is an island at the southern end of Maritime Southeast Asia, north of the Timor Sea. It is divided between the independent state of East Timor, and West Timor, belonging to the Indonesian province of East Nusa Tenggara. The island's surface is 30,777 square kilometres...
"are quite striking and amount to virtual formal identity […] in a number of instances", but considers this to be due to a linguistic substratum
Substratum
In linguistics, a stratum or strate is a language that influences, or is influenced by another through contact. A substratum is a language which has lower power or prestige than another, while a superstratum is the language that has higher power or prestige. Both substratum and superstratum...
rather than a direct relationship.
Typology
Indo-Pacific languages are primarily tone languages. They feature nouns marked for case but not necessarily for numberGrammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
. SOV word order
Word order
In linguistics, word order typology refers to the study of the order of the syntactic constituents of a language, and how different languages can employ different orders. Correlations between orders found in different syntactic subdomains are also of interest...
is the most common. (O'Grady et al. 1997:400.)
External classification
Merritt Ruhlen comments that, "At the present time the evidence connecting Indo-Pacific to the world's other language families is sparse, comparable perhaps to the relatively weak links between KhoisanKhoisan languages
The Khoisan languages are the click languages of Africa which do not belong to other language families. They include languages indigenous to southern and eastern Africa, though some, such as the Khoi languages, appear to have moved to their current locations not long before the Bantu expansion...
and other families", but adds that "...there do appear to be some threads connecting Indo-Pacific with the world's other language families, threads that further research can be expected to strengthen." He sees this lack of evidence as the result partly of our general lack of knowledge of these languages and the almost complete lack of meaningful historical studies of them, and partly due to the "truly great linguistic diversity" of New Guinea. Ruhlen gives the Southern Tasmanian mo-took (forefinger), the Southeastern Tasmanian togue (hand), the Proto-Karonan *dik (one), the Boven Mbian tek (fingernail), and the Digul tuk (fingernail) as examples of forms that may be related to tik, a widespread root "whose original meaning was probably 'finger'." According to him, the root can also be found in Nilo-Saharan
Nilo-Saharan languages
The Nilo-Saharan languages are a proposed family of African languages spoken by some 50 million people, mainly in the upper parts of the Chari and Nile rivers , including historic Nubia, north of where the two tributaries of Nile meet...
, Niger–Kordofanian, Afroasiatic, Eurasiatic
Eurasiatic languages
Eurasiatic is a language macrofamily proposed by Joseph Greenberg that includes many language families historically spoken in northern Eurasia. The eight branches of Eurasiatic are Etruscan, Indo-European, Uralic–Yukaghir, Altaic, Korean-Japanese-Ainu, Gilyak, Chukotian, and Eskimo–Aleut, spoken in...
, Dené–Caucasian, Austric
Austric languages
The Austric language superfamily is a large hypothetical grouping of languages primarily spoken in Southeast Asia, the Pacific, and the eastern Indian subcontinent. It includes the Austronesian language family of Taiwan, the Malay Archipelago, Pacific Islands, and Madagascar, as well as the...
, and Amerind
Amerind languages
Amerind is a higher-level language family proposed by Joseph Greenberg in 1960. Greenberg proposed that all of the indigenous languages of the Americas belong to one of three language families, the previously established Eskimo–Aleut and Na–Dene, and with everything else—almost universally believed...
.
Ruhlen regards pal, meaning two, as another common root in the world's languages; within Indo-Pacific, related forms with the same meaning in the Andamanese languages include Biada's (ik)pāūr(-da), Kede's (ír-)pōl, Chariar's (nér-)pól, and Juwoi's (ró-)pāūr, related forms with the same meaning in Tasmania include Southeastern Tasmanian's boula ~ bura and Southern Tasmanian's pooalih, and related forms with the same meaning in New Guinea include Ndani's bere and Sauweri's pere. According to him, similar forms can also be found outside Indo-Pacific in Australian, Nilo-Saharan, Niger–Kordofanian, Afroasiatic, Eurasiatic, Dravidian
Dravidian languages
The Dravidian language family includes approximately 85 genetically related languages, spoken by about 217 million people. They are mainly spoken in southern India and parts of eastern and central India as well as in northeastern Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, and...
, Austric, and Amerind, although its meaning has changed significantly in some of these families.
Subdivision
According to Greenberg, Indo-Pacific consists of fourteen families. He suggested a tentative sub-classification into seven groups, listed in bold below.- Tasmanian
- Tasmanian languagesTasmanian languagesThe Tasmanian languages, or Palawa languages, were the languages indigenous to the island of Tasmania. Based on short wordlists, it appears that there were anywhere from five to sixteen languages on Tasmania....
- Tasmanian languages
- Andamanese
- Andamanese languagesAndamanese languagesThe Andamanese languages form a proposed language family spoken by the Andamanese peoples, a group of Negritos who live in the Andaman Islands, a union territory of India. Its validity is disputed...
(perhaps only the Great Andamanese languagesGreat Andamanese languagesThe Great Andamanese languages are a nearly extinct language family spoken by the Great Andamanese peoples of the Andaman Islands, a union territory of India.- History :...
)
- Andamanese languages
- Nuclear New Guinea
- Central New Guinea languages
- Kapauku–Baliem languages
- Highlands
- Huon
- North New Guinea languages
- South New Guinea languages
- Southwest New Guinea languages
- West Papuan
- West New Guinea languagesWest New Guinea languagesThe Cenderawasih languages, also known as West New Guinea languages, are a moderately supported branch of Austronesian languages of Indonesia, found in the islands and shoreline of Cenderawasih Bay in the provinces of West Papua and Papua....
- North Halmahera languages
- Timor–Alor languages
- West New Guinea languages
- East New Guinea
- East New Guinea languages
- Northeast New Guinea
- Northeast New Guinea languages
- Pacific
- BougainvilleBougainville IslandBougainville Island is the main island of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville of Papua New Guinea. This region is also known as Bougainville Province or the North Solomons. The population of the province is 175,160 , which includes the adjacent island of Buka and assorted outlying islands...
languages (see East Papuan languagesEast Papuan languages*Baining family*North Bougainville family — Bougainville*South Bougainville family — Bougainville*Central Solomon family...
) - New BritainNew BritainNew Britain, or Niu Briten, is the largest island in the Bismarck Archipelago of Papua New Guinea. It is separated from the island of New Guinea by the Dampier and Vitiaz Straits and from New Ireland by St. George's Channel...
languages (see East Papuan languages) - Central Melanesian languages (see East Papuan languages)
- Central Solomons languagesCentral Solomons languagesThe Central Solomon languages are four distantly but demonstrably related languages of the Solomon Islands, identified as a family by Wilhelm Schmidt in 1908...
- Santa Cruz languages (see Temotu ProvinceTemotu ProvinceTemotu is the easternmost province of the Solomon Islands. The province was formerly known as Santa Cruz Islands Province. It consists, essentially, of two chains of islands which run parallel to each other from the northwest to the southeast.- Islands :...
)
- Central Solomons languages
- Bougainville
This classification was never widely accepted, and has largely been supplanted by that of Stephen Wurm. They do not generally agree well. For example:
- Greenberg's North New Guinea family corresponds to four of Wurm's families, SkoSko languagesThe Sko or Skou languages are a small language family spoken by about 7000 people, mainly along the coast of Sandaun Province in Papua New Guinea, with a few being inland from this area and at least one just across the border in the Indonesian province of Papua . Skou languages are unusual in New...
, Sepik–Ramu, TorricelliTorricelli languagesThe Torricelli languages are a language family of about fifty languages of the northern Papua New Guinea coast, spoken by only about 80,000 people. Named after Torricelli Mountains. The most populous and best known Torricelli languages are the Arapesh, with about 30,000 speakers.The most promising...
, and the Northern branch of Trans–New Guinea;
- Greenberg's West New Guinea family corresponds to four of Wurm's, East Bird's HeadEast Bird's Head languagesThe East Bird's Head languages form a language family of three languages in the "Bird's Head" Peninsula of western New Guinea, spoken by only 20,000 people in all....
, Geelvink Bay, the South Bird's Head and West Bomberai branches of Trans–New Guinea, and the Bird's Head branch of West PapuanWest Papuan languagesThe West Papuan languages are a hypothetical language family of about two dozen Papuan languages of the Bird's Head Peninsula of far western New Guinea and the island of Halmahera, spoken by about 220 000 people in all....
.
The few similarities are retentions from earlier linguists' work:
- Greenberg's Northeast New Guinea family closely matches Wurm's Madang-Adelbert Range branch of Trans–New Guinea
- Greenberg's Eastern New Guinea family and Wurm's Eastern Main-Section branch of Trans–New Guinea both preserve Tom Dutton's Southeast New Guinea family.