The prehistory of the Austronesian-speaking peoples: A view from language

Blust, Robert

doi:10.1007/bf02221119

Cited by 155 publications

(79 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…2). A sizable amount of the PAn vocabulary has been reconstructed (16,17), and all of the languages in our sample retain PAn cognates. However, the proportion of these cognates in each language varies, and the lexicon of PS also contains many words that cannot be traced to PAn.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coevolution of languages and genes on the island of Sumba, eastern Indonesia

Lansing

Cox

Downey

et al. 2007

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Numerous studies indicate strong associations between languages and genes among human populations at the global scale, but all broader scale genetic and linguistic patterns must arise from processes originating at the community level. We examine linguistic and genetic variation in a contact zone on the eastern Indonesian island of Sumba, where Neolithic Austronesian farming communities settled and began interacting with aboriginal foraging societies Ϸ3,500 years ago. Phylogenetic reconstruction based on a 200-word Swadesh list sampled from 29 localities supports the hypothesis that Sumbanese languages derive from a single ancestral Austronesian language. However, the proportion of cognates (words with a common origin) traceable to Proto-Austronesian (PAn) varies among language subgroups distributed across the island. Interestingly, a positive correlation was found between the percentage of Y chromosome lineages that derive from Austronesian (as opposed to aboriginal) ancestors and the retention of PAn cognates. We also find a striking correlation between the percentage of PAn cognates and geographic distance from the site where many Sumbanese believe their ancestors arrived on the island. These language-gene-geography correlations, unprecedented at such a fine scale, imply that historical patterns of social interaction between expanding farmers and resident hunter-gatherers largely explain community-level language evolution on Sumba. We propose a model to explain linguistic and demographic coevolution at fine spatial and temporal scales.Austronesian languages ͉ cognate ͉ contact zone ͉ language evolution ͉ Y chromosome haplogroups L anguages, like populations, change over time, but the rules governing language change are still not well understood. Because lexical and structural innovation, borrowing, and loss are difficult to observe and quantify over brief periods (1) and are impossible to witness over long periods, researchers are forced to undertake indirect approaches to infer the processes of language change. One such approach is to look for associations between linguistic and genetic classifications. Many well-known studies have identified associations between the languages and genes of human populations at continental and global geographic scales (2-6).

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coevolution of languages and genes on the island of Sumba, eastern Indonesia

Lansing

Cox

Downey

et al. 2007

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Most important for our purposes are reconstructions by Blust and Trussel (ongoing) of Proto-Austronesian (PAN), Proto-Malayo-Polynesian (PMP) and POc (see also Blust 1995) and two volumes of essays on the lexicon of POc (Ross et al 1998(Ross et al , 2008. 2 PAN and PMP had terms for a number of crops and gardening practices (Blust 1995(Blust , 2009). Terms associated with rice and millet cultivation were not preserved in POc but others were.…”

Section: Retention Of Proto-oceanic Terms For Horticulture In Remote mentioning

confidence: 99%

Were the First Lapita Colonisers of Remote Oceania Farmers as Well as Foragers?

Pawley¹

2017

New Perspectives in Southeast Asian and Pacific Prehistory

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“…Blust (1978Blust ( , 1998 has argued that the first split in Oceanic was between the Admiralties languages and the rest. If so, this would indicate that the Admiralties were not the source of the Oceanic languages of Remote Oceania.…”

Section: Proto-oceanic As the Primary Language Of Early Western Lapitmentioning

confidence: 99%

New Perspectives in Southeast Asian and Pacific Prehistory

Pawley¹

2017

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terra australis 45Terra Australis reports the results of archaeological and related research within the south and east of Asia, though mainly Australia, New Guinea and island Melanesia -lands that remained terra australis incognita to generations of prehistorians. Its subject is the settlement of the diverse environments in this isolated quarter of the globe by peoples who have maintained their discrete and traditional ways of life into the recent recorded or remembered past and at times into the observable present. Copyright of the text remains with the authors, 2017. This book is copyright in all countries subscribing to the Berne convention. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be made to the publisher. List of volumes in Terra Australis Karina ArifinFakultas Ilmu Pengetahuan Budaya, Departemen Arkeologi, Universitas Indonesia, Depok, Indonesia Robert BlustDepartment of Linguistics, University of Hawai'i, Honolulu, USA David BulbeckDepartment of Archaeology and Natural History, College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia Judith CameronDepartment of Archaeology and Natural History, College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia Zhang ChiSchool of Archaeology and Museology, Peking University, Beijing, China Gang HeThe Cultural Relics and Archeological Research Institution in Hunan Province, China Helen HeathDepartment of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Otago, North Dunedin, New Zealand Charles HighamDepartment of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Otago, North Dunedin, New Zealand Mark J. HudsonMt Fuji World Heritage Centre for Mountain Research, Shizuoka, Japan Museum of Natural and Environmental History, Shizuoka, Japan Hsiao-chun HungDepartment of Archaeology and Natural History, College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia Michiko IntohDepartment of Social Research, National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, Japan Timothy A. JinamDivision of Population Genetics, National Institute of Genetics, Shizuoka, Japan Hideaki Kanzawa-KiriyamaDepartment of Anthropology, National Museum of Nature and Science, Tokyo, Japan Nguyen Kim DungThe Vietnamese Institute of Archaeology, Hanoi, Vietnam Nguyen Lan CuongThe Vietnamese Institute of Archaeology, Hanoi, Vietnam Tracey L.-D. LuDepartment of Anthropology, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China Hirofumi MatsumuraFaculty of Health Science, Sapporo Medical University, Sapporo, Japan Armand Salvador MijaresArchaeological Studies Program, University of the Philippines, Quezon City, Philippines Carmen SarjeantSchool of Archaeology and Anthropology, College of Arts and Social Sciences, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia Ken-ichi ShinodaDepartment of Anthropology, National Museum of Nature and Science, Tsukuba, Japan Tr...

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The prehistory of the Austronesian-speaking peoples: A view from language

Cited by 155 publications

References 37 publications

Coevolution of languages and genes on the island of Sumba, eastern Indonesia

Coevolution of languages and genes on the island of Sumba, eastern Indonesia

Were the First Lapita Colonisers of Remote Oceania Farmers as Well as Foragers?

New Perspectives in Southeast Asian and Pacific Prehistory

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