An Oceanic Origin for Äiwoo, the Language of the Reef Islands?

Abstract

Whether the languages of the Reefs--Santa Cruz (RSC) group have a Papuan or an austronesian origin has long been in dispute. Various background issues are treated in the introductory section. In section 2 we examine the lexicon of the RSC and Utupua-Vanikoro languages and show that there are regular sound correspondences among these languages, and that RSC languages display regular reflexes of Proto-Oceanic etyma and are therefore Austronesian. We also show that together the RSC and Utupua-Vanikoro languages form an Oceanic subgroup, which we label "Temotu," and that the Temotu group is probably a first-order subgroup within the Oceanic family. In section 3, we examine a variety of constructions and morphemes in Aiwoo, the language of the Reef Islands, to see whether they have plausible Oceanic sources. The answer in most cases is that they do. This is important, as several of these constructions have in the past been given as evidence that the RSC languages have a Papuan origin. We conclude that the RSC languages are Austronesian and that there is no need to posit a Pauan element to explain their origin.

Statistical Reasoning in the Evaluation of Typological Diversity in Island Melanesia

“…Note also the very strong division between Austronesian and non-Austronesian languages in this network. 7 The strong patterning of Äiwoo with Austronesian languages, rather than the other non-Austronesian languages of Bougainville-Solomons, is consistent with Naess (2006), a paper that clarifies the essentially Austronesian behavior of the purported noun classes, as well as Ross and Naess (2007), which gives the definitive comparative method classification of Äiwoo as a member of a first-order subgroup of Oceanic. The NeighborNet 6.…”

Where *R they all? The Geography and History of *R-loss in Southern Oceanic Languages

“…Western Oceanic linkage Temotu (Ross and Naess 2007) [Eastern Oceanic] ? (Pawley 1972, Geraghty 1990 the siting of these isogloss bundles is an accidental consequence of the distribution of the better-documented and relatively conservative languages: Mota, Raga, [North] Ambrym, and Nguna" (Geraghty 1990:85).…”

“…Yet I would like to make some brief observations about one area that Geraghty did not cover in his initial study, namely Temotu. Ross and Naess (2007) identified the Temotu subgroup, consisting of two branches, Reefs-Santa Cruz and Utupua-Vanikoro; they suggested it may have been a first-order subgroup of Oceanic (see figure 1). If this proposal is correct, and if one follows strictly the family-tree model, then one should not expect to find any shared innovation between Temotu languages and Southern Oceanic languages.…”

Sociological factors in Reefs-Santa Cruz language vitality: a 40 year retrospective

“…These languages have been identified as aberrant Oceanic languages of the Temotu subgroup of Proto Oceanic (Ross and Naess 2007) with supporting evidence from the verb complex (Naess and Boerger 2008) and passive construction (van den Berg and Boerger 2011). The other branch of the Temotu subgroup is made up of the six languages spoken on Utupua and Vanikoro.…”