Contrary to what non-practitioners might expect, the systems of phonetic notation used by linguis... more Contrary to what non-practitioners might expect, the systems of phonetic notation used by linguists are highly idiosyncratic. Not only do various linguistic subfields disagree on the specific symbols they use to denote the speech sounds of languages, but also in large databases of sound inventories considerable variation can be found. Inspired by recent efforts to link cross-linguistic data with help of reference catalogues (Glottolog, Concepticon) across different resources, we present initial efforts to link different phonetic notation systems to a catalogue of speech sounds. This is achieved with the help of a database accompanied by a software framework that uses a limited but easily extendable set of non-binary feature values to allow for quick and convenient registration of different transcription systems, while at the same time linking to additional datasets with restricted inventories. Linking different transcription systems enables us to conveniently translate between different phonetic transcription systems, while linking sounds to databases allows users quick access to various kinds of metadata, including feature values, statistics on phoneme inventories, and information on prosody and sound classes. In order to prove the feasibility of this enterprise, we supplement an initial version of our cross-linguistic database of phonetic transcription systems (CLTS), which currently registers 5 transcription systems and links to 15 datasets, as well as a web application, which permits users to conveniently test the power of the automatic translation across transcription systems.
With increasing amounts of digitally available data from all over the world, manual annotation of... more With increasing amounts of digitally available data from all over the world, manual annotation of cognates in multilingual word lists becomes more and more time-consuming in historical linguistics. Using available software packages to pre-process the data prior to manual analysis can drastically speed up the process of cognate detection. Furthermore, it allows us to get a quick overview on data which has not yet been intensively studied by experts. LingPy is a Python library which provides a large arsenal of routines for sequence comparison in historical linguistics. With LingPy, linguists cannot only automatically search for cognates in lexical data, they can also align the automatically identified words, and output them in various forms, which aim at facilitating manual inspection. In this tutorial, we will briefly introduce the basic concepts behind the algorithms employed by LingPy, and then illustrate in concrete workflows, how automatic sequence comparison can be applied to multilingual word lists. The goal is to provide the readers with all information they need to (a) carry out cognate detection and alignment analyses in LingPy, (b) select the appropriate algorithms for the appropriate task, (c) evaluate how well automatic cognate detection algorithms perform compared to experts, and (d) export their data into various formats useful for additional analyses or data sharing. While basic knowledge of the Python language is useful for all analyses, our tutorial is structured in such a way that scholars with basic knowledge of computing can follow through all steps as well.
Old Rapa, the indigenous Eastern Polynesian language of the island of Rapa Iti, is no longer spok... more Old Rapa, the indigenous Eastern Polynesian language of the island of Rapa Iti, is no longer spoken regularly in any cultural domains and has been replaced in most institutional domains by Tahitian. The remaining speakers are elders who maintain it only through linguistic memory, where elements of the language are remembered and can be elicited but they are not actively used in regular conversation. Reo Rapa, a contact language that fuses Tahitian and Old Rapa, which has developed from the prolonged and dominant influence of the Tahitian language in Rapa Iti since the mid nineteenth century, has replaced the indigenous Old Rapa language at home and between most people in regular social interaction. This article analyzes Reo Rapa through an examination of its genesis and its structure. This article furthermore defines Reo Rapa as a unique contact variety, a shift-break language: a language that resulted from stalled shift due to a collective anti-convergence sentiment in the speech community. This article further discusses a variation of Reo Rapa speech, New Rapa, which presents important questions for the natural-ness of language change and the visibility of actuation.
For the past fifty years, historical linguistics and archaeology have provided seemingly mutually... more For the past fifty years, historical linguistics and archaeology have provided seemingly mutually corroboratory evidence for the settlement of east Polynesia. However, more recent findings in archaeology have shifted this relationship out of balance, calling previous conclusions into question. This paper first reviews the generally accepted archaeological and linguistic theories of east Polynesia's settlement, then describes the recent archaeological findings, highlighting the areas where the evidence from the two disciplines is now discordant. In sections four and five, I examine the linguistic data from Eastern Polynesian languages and propose a new, contact-based model for the region. The new linguistic model ultimately demonstrates that the settlement of east Polynesia and the development of the Eastern Polynesian languages occurred in one major period of dispersal with subsequent spheres of contact among central Polynesian communities, producing the pattern of cultural and linguistic traits we see today.
International Conference on Historical Linguistics, 2019
With more than 120 languages [1] Vanuatu has more languages per capita than anywhere else in the ... more With more than 120 languages [1] Vanuatu has more languages per capita than anywhere else in the world. This diversity may have been shaped by both language-internal and sociological factors [2], as well as external factors such as disease outbreaks or volcanic eruptions [3] and multiple waves of colonization [4]. These factors suggest that, since the arrival of its first inhabitants, there have been varying periods of population booms as well as periods of substantial decreases. The Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database provides 210-item wordlists for over 1500 languages spoken throughout the Pacific region, and includes data for 330 varieties of Vanuatu. We have recently revised the cognate coding for all the Oceanic languages following the comparative method in consultation with regional experts and published sources [5, 6]. Our detailed coverage of the Vanuatu languages, together with cutting edge methods from Bayesian phylodynamics, enables an in-depth analysis of the diversification process that led to Vanuatu's language diversity. Phylogenetic inference is done with a Birth-Death-Skyline model [7] that incorporates flexible diversification and extinction rates of languages. After testing for the most suitable model of language evolution we obtain a sample from a posterior distribution of trees that most accurately resemble the historical circumstances of Vanuatu. The simultaneously inferred rates are used to elucidate the pace and dynamics of language diversification that made Vanuatu the "Galapagos of language evolution".
Archaeology and historical linguistics have a long tradition of providing mutually cor-roboratory... more Archaeology and historical linguistics have a long tradition of providing mutually cor-roboratory inferences, however based on very different kinds of data. Where archaeology presents concrete evidence of the material past, shared linguistic features between languages show important non-material evidence of the cultural past. This relationship is equally prominent in the realm of exchange-whilst archaeology can uncover the physical products of exchange between communities, linguistic features offer keys to understanding the nature and the path of exchange. In Polynesia, the linguistic record is of particular importance in understanding and uncovering past networks of exchange between islands. Here, the "one-island, one-language" historical linguistic situation, in which each island had its own unique speech variety with marked linguistic variables, provides historical linguists an exceptional opportunity to view exclusively shared linguistic features between certain island communities. In this talk, I will first describe how comparative historical linguistics can provide strong evidence of past mobility between established cultural groups, and I will demonstrate how linguists can identify whether a shared feature is due to a shared inheritance (implying shared origin) or due to exchange (implying post-settlement contact). Second, I will provide linguistic evidence for specific networks of exchange in Polynesia, focusing on networks that demonstrate long-distance mobility: Ra'ivavae in southeast Polynesia and Rennell in the Solomon Islands; Rapa Nui and Rapa Iti; Hawai'i and New Zealand; the Marquesas and Mangareva; Niue and the region of central-east Polynesia. Third, and finally, I will discuss the tradition of linguistic and archaeological collaboration in understanding pre-European Polynesian history, and I will emphasise the necessity of viewing linguistic and archaeological data in parallel, in order to paint a more complete picture of the deep Polynesian past.
Contrary to what non-practitioners might expect, the systems of phonetic notation used by linguis... more Contrary to what non-practitioners might expect, the systems of phonetic notation used by linguists are highly idiosyncratic. Not only do various linguistic subfields disagree on the specific symbols they use to denote the speech sounds of languages, but also in large databases of sound inventories considerable variation can be found. Inspired by recent efforts to link cross-linguistic data with help of reference catalogues (Glottolog, Concepticon) across different resources, we present initial efforts to link different phonetic notation systems to a catalogue of speech sounds. This is achieved with the help of a database accompanied by a software framework that uses a limited but easily extendable set of non-binary feature values to allow for quick and convenient registration of different transcription systems, while at the same time linking to additional datasets with restricted inventories. Linking different transcription systems enables us to conveniently translate between different phonetic transcription systems, while linking sounds to databases allows users quick access to various kinds of metadata, including feature values, statistics on phoneme inventories, and information on prosody and sound classes. In order to prove the feasibility of this enterprise, we supplement an initial version of our cross-linguistic database of phonetic transcription systems (CLTS), which currently registers 5 transcription systems and links to 15 datasets, as well as a web application, which permits users to conveniently test the power of the automatic translation across transcription systems.
With increasing amounts of digitally available data from all over the world, manual annotation of... more With increasing amounts of digitally available data from all over the world, manual annotation of cognates in multilingual word lists becomes more and more time-consuming in historical linguistics. Using available software packages to pre-process the data prior to manual analysis can drastically speed up the process of cognate detection. Furthermore, it allows us to get a quick overview on data which has not yet been intensively studied by experts. LingPy is a Python library which provides a large arsenal of routines for sequence comparison in historical linguistics. With LingPy, linguists cannot only automatically search for cognates in lexical data, they can also align the automatically identified words, and output them in various forms, which aim at facilitating manual inspection. In this tutorial, we will briefly introduce the basic concepts behind the algorithms employed by LingPy, and then illustrate in concrete workflows, how automatic sequence comparison can be applied to multilingual word lists. The goal is to provide the readers with all information they need to (a) carry out cognate detection and alignment analyses in LingPy, (b) select the appropriate algorithms for the appropriate task, (c) evaluate how well automatic cognate detection algorithms perform compared to experts, and (d) export their data into various formats useful for additional analyses or data sharing. While basic knowledge of the Python language is useful for all analyses, our tutorial is structured in such a way that scholars with basic knowledge of computing can follow through all steps as well.
Old Rapa, the indigenous Eastern Polynesian language of the island of Rapa Iti, is no longer spok... more Old Rapa, the indigenous Eastern Polynesian language of the island of Rapa Iti, is no longer spoken regularly in any cultural domains and has been replaced in most institutional domains by Tahitian. The remaining speakers are elders who maintain it only through linguistic memory, where elements of the language are remembered and can be elicited but they are not actively used in regular conversation. Reo Rapa, a contact language that fuses Tahitian and Old Rapa, which has developed from the prolonged and dominant influence of the Tahitian language in Rapa Iti since the mid nineteenth century, has replaced the indigenous Old Rapa language at home and between most people in regular social interaction. This article analyzes Reo Rapa through an examination of its genesis and its structure. This article furthermore defines Reo Rapa as a unique contact variety, a shift-break language: a language that resulted from stalled shift due to a collective anti-convergence sentiment in the speech community. This article further discusses a variation of Reo Rapa speech, New Rapa, which presents important questions for the natural-ness of language change and the visibility of actuation.
For the past fifty years, historical linguistics and archaeology have provided seemingly mutually... more For the past fifty years, historical linguistics and archaeology have provided seemingly mutually corroboratory evidence for the settlement of east Polynesia. However, more recent findings in archaeology have shifted this relationship out of balance, calling previous conclusions into question. This paper first reviews the generally accepted archaeological and linguistic theories of east Polynesia's settlement, then describes the recent archaeological findings, highlighting the areas where the evidence from the two disciplines is now discordant. In sections four and five, I examine the linguistic data from Eastern Polynesian languages and propose a new, contact-based model for the region. The new linguistic model ultimately demonstrates that the settlement of east Polynesia and the development of the Eastern Polynesian languages occurred in one major period of dispersal with subsequent spheres of contact among central Polynesian communities, producing the pattern of cultural and linguistic traits we see today.
International Conference on Historical Linguistics, 2019
With more than 120 languages [1] Vanuatu has more languages per capita than anywhere else in the ... more With more than 120 languages [1] Vanuatu has more languages per capita than anywhere else in the world. This diversity may have been shaped by both language-internal and sociological factors [2], as well as external factors such as disease outbreaks or volcanic eruptions [3] and multiple waves of colonization [4]. These factors suggest that, since the arrival of its first inhabitants, there have been varying periods of population booms as well as periods of substantial decreases. The Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database provides 210-item wordlists for over 1500 languages spoken throughout the Pacific region, and includes data for 330 varieties of Vanuatu. We have recently revised the cognate coding for all the Oceanic languages following the comparative method in consultation with regional experts and published sources [5, 6]. Our detailed coverage of the Vanuatu languages, together with cutting edge methods from Bayesian phylodynamics, enables an in-depth analysis of the diversification process that led to Vanuatu's language diversity. Phylogenetic inference is done with a Birth-Death-Skyline model [7] that incorporates flexible diversification and extinction rates of languages. After testing for the most suitable model of language evolution we obtain a sample from a posterior distribution of trees that most accurately resemble the historical circumstances of Vanuatu. The simultaneously inferred rates are used to elucidate the pace and dynamics of language diversification that made Vanuatu the "Galapagos of language evolution".
Archaeology and historical linguistics have a long tradition of providing mutually cor-roboratory... more Archaeology and historical linguistics have a long tradition of providing mutually cor-roboratory inferences, however based on very different kinds of data. Where archaeology presents concrete evidence of the material past, shared linguistic features between languages show important non-material evidence of the cultural past. This relationship is equally prominent in the realm of exchange-whilst archaeology can uncover the physical products of exchange between communities, linguistic features offer keys to understanding the nature and the path of exchange. In Polynesia, the linguistic record is of particular importance in understanding and uncovering past networks of exchange between islands. Here, the "one-island, one-language" historical linguistic situation, in which each island had its own unique speech variety with marked linguistic variables, provides historical linguists an exceptional opportunity to view exclusively shared linguistic features between certain island communities. In this talk, I will first describe how comparative historical linguistics can provide strong evidence of past mobility between established cultural groups, and I will demonstrate how linguists can identify whether a shared feature is due to a shared inheritance (implying shared origin) or due to exchange (implying post-settlement contact). Second, I will provide linguistic evidence for specific networks of exchange in Polynesia, focusing on networks that demonstrate long-distance mobility: Ra'ivavae in southeast Polynesia and Rennell in the Solomon Islands; Rapa Nui and Rapa Iti; Hawai'i and New Zealand; the Marquesas and Mangareva; Niue and the region of central-east Polynesia. Third, and finally, I will discuss the tradition of linguistic and archaeological collaboration in understanding pre-European Polynesian history, and I will emphasise the necessity of viewing linguistic and archaeological data in parallel, in order to paint a more complete picture of the deep Polynesian past.
The innovation of distinctive binary possessive marking in Polynesian languages has long intrigue... more The innovation of distinctive binary possessive marking in Polynesian languages has long intrigued Pacific linguists. In these languages, possessed nouns are marked by a morpheme whose vowel is sometimes o, sometimes a. While this distinction (henceforth referred to as the "A/O distinction") is itself uncontroversial, the semantic value of the contrast has been continually debated. In early discussions, Biggs (1969) and Clark (1976) suggested that the opposition is one of dominance. Wilson, in 1982, suggested that it is more related to agency and control of the possessor. Several other proposals have more recently been offered to account for the A/O contrast: spatial representation (Bennardo 2000), alienability (Buse 1996, Besnier 2000, Næss 2000), transitivity (Cook 2000), as well as varied relationships (Moyse-Faurie 2000). Based on native speaker and ethno-centered accounts of possession in Polynesian languages (Mulloy and Rapu 1977, Volkel 2010, Taumoefolau 1996), I suggest that the A/O distinction is best described using the Polynesian concept of mana, 'inherent power or energy', where the distinction between A/O relies on an association of a possessor's mana with respect to the possessum. In this talk, I will review the existing and varied descriptions for the semantic nature of this distinction. I will then demonstrate the possessive distinction in several Polynesian languages and will offer an explanation and a new semantic reconstruction for it, based in the Polynesian interpretation of mana and the marked socio-political hierarchies that were developed by speakers of Proto-Polynesian.
On the island of Rapa Iti, one of the least populated islands in French Polynesia, a century of s... more On the island of Rapa Iti, one of the least populated islands in French Polynesia, a century of socio-political pressure from Tahiti has resulted in a complex linguistic situation. Old Rapa, the indigenous Eastern Polynesian language of Rapa Iti, is no longer spoken regularly in any cultural domain and Tahitian has replaced it in most institutional domains. Reo Rapa, a “shift-break” contact language that fuses Tahitian and Old Rapa, has replaced the indigenous Old Rapa language between most people in both home and social interactions. Furthermore, younger speakers are increasingly using a reactive, anti-Tahitian variety of Reo Rapa (New Rapa).
This talk will focus on the recent development of language change in Rapa Iti by addressing the factors of cultural identity that have triggered New Rapa, the specific people responsible for creating this linguistic variety, and the linguistic processes by which it continues to evolve.
This dissertation presents the results of a language documentation project carried out in Rapa It... more This dissertation presents the results of a language documentation project carried out in Rapa Iti, the southernmost island of French Polynesia. It first highlights the indigenous language of Rapa Iti (“Old Rapa”) as an endangered and under-documented Polynesian language and provides the first linguistic description of it. Second, this dissertation seeks to demonstrate that the language spoken today on Rapa Iti is a language undergoing rapid and visible change. Very little of Old Rapa is still spoken, the modern language (“Reo Rapa”) has become heavily Tahitianized, and a “new” Rapa (“New Rapa”) is emerging from revitalization efforts through which the Rapa Iti people are striving to define a unique Rapa identity. Through these two primary aims, this dissertation intends to contribute to typological studies of languages in general, language contact studies, knowledge of East Polynesian languages, and language change studies. This dissertation not only provides documentation of the O...
This paper attempts to provide an explanation for the diachronic development of long vowels in Ar... more This paper attempts to provide an explanation for the diachronic development of long vowels in Arta, a Negrito language spoken in Nagtipunan, Quirino Province, the Philippines. In Arta, a large number of lexical roots and morphologically complex words have long vowels in them, but the items with a long penultimate vowel which are shared with other Philippine languages that retain an older accentual system are reflected as short vowels. Thus, the long vowels seen in Arta should be separated from inherited accents. It is argued that these vowels developed independently in the language by compensatory lengthening and vowel fusion, after the loss of *k, *q, and *h. Since both compensatory lengthening and vowel fusion crucially involve the principle of mora count conservation, the phonological changes which occurred in Arta indicate that the mora has played a significant role in the language.
Sound Comparisons hosts over 90,000 individual word recordings and 50,000 narrow phonetic transcr... more Sound Comparisons hosts over 90,000 individual word recordings and 50,000 narrow phonetic transcriptions from 600 language varieties from eleven language families around the world. This resource is designed to serve researchers in phonetics, phonology and related fields. Transcriptions follow new initiatives for standardisation in usage of the IPA and Unicode. At soundcomparisons.com, users can explore the transcription datasets by phonetically-informed search and filtering, customise selections of languages and words, download any targeted data subset (sound files and transcriptions) and cite it through a custom URL. We present sample research applications based on our extensive coverage of regional and sociolinguistic variation within major languages, and also of endangered languages, for which Sound Comparisons provides a rapid first documentation of their diversity in phonetics. The multilingual interface and user-friendly, ‘hover-tohear’ maps likewise constitute an outreach too...
Each of the 65 inhabited islands of Vanuatu hosts its own unique linguistic environment in which ... more Each of the 65 inhabited islands of Vanuatu hosts its own unique linguistic environment in which varying degrees of multilingualism are found. This paper defines various types of small-scale multilingual settings in Vanuatu and explores what sociohistorical factors have led to them. This paper is based on first-hand observations and primary data collected by the authors in four locations in the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu since 2016: two neighboring villages of Emae Island (Makatu and Tongamea), North Malekula, and on Maewo Island. The assessments of multilingualism in these examples from Vanuatu were qualitative, based on observations of sociolinguistic practices in each of these areas, as well as data from language history and language use surveys carried out in each place. Through defining and comparing the types of multilingualism present in the four case studies, we identify patterns in the social and historical processes that lead to various kinds of multilingualism: (a) ...
replacement in Remote Oceania 2 3 Cosimo Posth1,*,§, Kathrin Nägele1,§, Heidi Colleran2,‡, Frédér... more replacement in Remote Oceania 2 3 Cosimo Posth1,*,§, Kathrin Nägele1,§, Heidi Colleran2,‡, Frédérique Valentin3, Stuart Bedford4,2, 4 Kaitip W. Kami5,2, Richard Shing5, Hallie Buckley6, Rebecca Kinaston1, Mary Walworth2, Geoffrey 5 R. Clark7, Christian Reepmeyer8, James Flexner9, Tamara Maric10, Johannes Moser11,12, Julia 6 Gresky12, Lawrence Kiko13,12, Kathryn J. Robson14, Kathryn Auckland15, Stephen J. Oppenheimer16, 7 Adrian VS Hill15, Alexander J. Mentzer15, Jana Zech17, Fiona Petchey18, Patrick Roberts17, 8 Choongwon Jeong1, Russell D. Gray2, Johannes Krause1,* & Adam Powell2,1,* 9 10 1 Department of Archaeogenetics, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Kahlaische Straβe 10, Jena 07745, 11 Germany 12 2 Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Kahlaische Straβe 10, 13 Jena 07745, Germany 14 3 Maison de l’Archéologie et de l’Ethnologie, CNRS, UMR 7041, 92023 Nanterre, France 15 4 School of Culture, H...
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Based on native speaker and ethno-centered accounts of possession in Polynesian languages (Mulloy and Rapu 1977, Volkel 2010, Taumoefolau 1996), I suggest that the A/O distinction is best described using the Polynesian concept of mana, 'inherent power or energy', where the distinction between A/O relies on an association of a possessor's mana with respect to the possessum. In this talk, I will review the existing and varied descriptions for the semantic nature of this distinction. I will then demonstrate the possessive distinction in several Polynesian languages and will offer an explanation and a new semantic reconstruction for it, based in the Polynesian interpretation of mana and the marked socio-political hierarchies that were developed by speakers of Proto-Polynesian.
This talk will focus on the recent development of language change in Rapa Iti by addressing the factors of cultural identity that have triggered New Rapa, the specific people responsible for creating this linguistic variety, and the linguistic processes by which it continues to evolve.