Austronesian Languages

Permanent link to open access version: http://hdl.handle.net/10523/10586

Materialising Ancestral Madang documents the emergence of pottery production processes and exchange networks along the northeast coast of New Guinea during the last millennium before the present. This dynamic period in the Pacific’s human past involved important fluctuations to people’s mobility, social interaction, and technological organisation. It therefore remains crucial to understanding and historicising the expansive maritime subsistence trading networks that famously characterised the coast in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This book investigates these transformations by exploring the archaeology of Madang District; the heart of the Madang exchange network that revolved around the production and distribution of distinctive red-slipped pots. Potsherds of this style have been previously found spanning a 200 km radius, reaching Karkar Island, the Bismarck Archipelago, and even the New Guinea Highlands. By combining archaeological survey, excavation, craft ethnography, and archaeometric analyses, the volume systematically delineates the production groups that were working within this broader community of practice. The study shows that pre-colonial potters made use of a range of local raw materials and were free to improvise with their forming and decorating techniques but learned and reproduced similar technological sequences over the past 500–600 years. It is likely that social restrictions permitted only potters from a small number of clans to produce ceramics and that the finished vessels were then distributed both informally within the local area and strategically during extensive trade voyages along the northeast coast of New Guinea. These results therefore cast light on an important but previously obscured aspect of Pacific culture history and provide a model for how craft production and exchange processes have manifested and co-modified across the generations

A relationship between the Daic (Tai-Kadai) and Austronesian language phyla has long been posited, but the evidence is restricted and it has been suggested that this indicates a split at the level of Proto-Austronesian of considerable antiquity. Two proposals model this relationship, one suggesting a direct relation with PAn, the other with PMP (Proto-Malayo-Polynesian). The paper evaluates all existing proposals, comparing them with reconstructed Tai, Kra-Dai and Hlaic, as well as suggesting new comparisons. It suggests that the only convincing explanation of the comparisons with different subsets of Austronesian is to suppose the relationship is multi-genetic, that intense contact across the Taiwan Strait in the early period of Austronesian maritime activity, allowed different elements to make up Daic. This can be compared with the genesis of Malagasy, where multiple islands contributed to the lexicon of present-day Malagasy.

Buckley C (2017) Looms, Weaving and the Austronesian Expansion. In: Cultural Exchanges in Monsoon Asia:  Andrea Acri , Roger Blench  and Alexandra Landmann (eds), ISEAS, Singapore.

Weaving plays an important role in Asian cultures, both in the practical and symbolic spheres. In this paper I trace the weaving technologies of Island Southeast Asia (ISEA) and Mainland Southeast Asia (MSEA) to their origins on the Asian mainland. A distinctive suite of technologies, including the body-tensioned loom, warp ikat and the tubular sarong, is found across a wide area. In ISEA it is associated with Austronesian speakers, and remnants of it are found on the mainland amongst Daic and Austroasiatic speakers. Significantly, it is absent on Taiwan, which (together with Hainan and parts of Laos and Vietnam) preserve an older form of the loom. I conclude that the weaving traditions of ISEA came directly from the mainland, rather than via Taiwan.

7th East Nusantara Conference (ENUS7) in Kupang, Indonesia, on 14 May 2018.

This talk deals with the question whether Atadei (or South Lembata) should be considered a distinct language or a dialect of Lamaholot. Evidence is presented by looking at the cognacy with close relatives, by phonological comparison, by morphological characteristics, and by syntactic features.

Rjabchikov, Sergei V., 1999. Utrachenny klyuch k pis’mennosti ostrova Paskhi. In: Y.A. Sorokin and A.M. Kholod (eds.) Versii antropotsentrizma (materialy III mezhdunarodnogo simpoziuma “Chelovek: yazyk, kul’tura, poznanie”, 27-28 aprelya 1999 goda, g. Krivoi Rog, Ukraina).  Moscow – Krivoy  Rog: The Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences; the Saksagani Library, pp. 89-91.

Keywords: Easter Island, Rapanui, Rapa Nui, Polynesia, rongorongo, script, writing, hieroglyphic script, folklore, Austronesian

There is a strand of work in the Austronesian literature claiming that the syntactic category distinctions familiar from Indo-European are lacking in certain languages belonging to this family. On the other hand, Baker (2005) claims that the categories noun, verb and adjective are represented in the grammars of all languages. This paper contributes to this debate, taking Fijian adjectives as a case study. In Fijian, putative adjectives can occur with person, number and tense morphology, making one suspect that they are in fact stative verbs, as various researchers have suggested for this and other members of the Oceanic branch. We show that despite appearances, ‘adjective’ is a member of Fijian’s inventory of syntactic categories. This finding suggests that the ability to combine with person, number and tense markers is not a good diagnostic for verb-hood. This in turn casts doubt on claims that a given language lacks adjectives that are based on this test, opening the possibility that the category ‘adjective’ may indeed be universal.

Scholars are still debating whether the argument realization of the "Philippine-type focus system" is ergative, split-ergative/accusative or symmetrical but not ergative (Himmelmann 2005). Major languages of the Philippines and of Taiwan are often the source for examples in these discussions, but minor languages (Reid 1971) are seldom considered. In this study we compare the argument realization systems of five of the fifteen Manobo languages spoken in the South Philippines, with the one of Tagalog. We found that while Tagalog has at least nine types (functions or roles) of arguments which can be pointed to as "topics" by verbal affixation, the lower number often found in Manobo grammars may be more a question of different grammatical frameworks used by their authors than the consequence of a reduced set of verbal affixes. We also found that while Paiwan or Tagalog show three differentiated case markers for non-personal core arguments, several of the Manobo language descriptions show four sets of case markers or pronouns. But the specific functions even of the three most used do not necessarily match those of the Paiwan or Tagalog ones, which differ from each other anyway as well in their distribution (Ross 2002:22); furthermore, some of the Manobo languages use one unique marker for at least 2 or even 3 of the four types, leading to more potential ambiguities, which is we believe the reason why the usage of demonstratives to complement the "determiner" role of the markers seems much more frequent in Manobo texts than in Tagalog. While this study is not likely to bring any breakthrough in the ergativity debate, it may contribute, by analyzing lists of cognate particles, affixes and pronouns, to summarize data for the diachronic studies to decide whether Proto-Austronesian was already of the Philippine-type, or was accusative.

Nauruan is a Micronesian language that has been classified outside of
the Nuclear Micronesian group. This classification suggests that Nauruan, unlike all other Micronesian languages, did not descend from Proto-Micronesian. Though this view has been adopted in the literature, it should be considered tenuous. It is based on little Nauruan data and is informed by work that is presented as highly tentative. This paper presents a reassessment of Nauruan classification, drawing on data from original fieldwork. Research shows not only that Nauruan is a Micronesian language, but that there is no compelling evidence for classifying Nauruan apart from the Nuclear group. Of particular importance is the claim that Nauruan fails to reflect the merger of Proto-Oceanic *d and *dr as Proto-Micronesian *c (Jackson 1986). Comparative evidence suggests that Nauruan does reflect this merger: POc *d, *dr > PMc *c > ř. It follows that Jackson’s classification for Nauruan is unmotivated, as is the Nuclear/non-Nuclear distinction within the family. Having established that Nauruan need not be classified apart from the Nuclear group, Nauruan’s precise classification within the Micronesian family is considered. A question of primary importance is whether Nauruan reflects the merger of Proto-Micronesian *s and *S. The possibility that Nauruan did not participate in this merger is considered, in which case Nauruan should be classified outside of the Central Micronesian group, like Kosraean. The possibility that Nauruan did participate in this merger is also considered, in which case Nauruan should be classified somewhere within Central Micronesian. Further, some innovations are described which are potentially shared between Nauruan and certain Central Micronesian languages. The possibility that these are shared innovations is considered, as are the implications this would have for Nauruan classification.

Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies / Yusof Ishak Institute, Temasek History Research Center, Temasek Working Paper Series, No. 1, 69 p.
https://www.iseas.edu.sg/articles-commentaries/temasek-working-paper-series

----- ABSTRACT: Borneo has so far remained marginal in studies on Southeast Asian peoples and tigers. While the tiger is not known to exist in Borneo today, it has a significant reality in historical traditions, oral literature, myths, beliefs, and rituals. This study combines various materials about Borneo, with a primary focus on its central regions, in order to, ultimately, try to shed light on ancient belief systems and the modalities of their evolution through time and cultural contact. It first surveys the local Felidae species, the names given to the tiger, and the presence of tiger body parts among villagers. Then, it reviews representations of the tiger in oral literature, its value as a symbol of martial manliness and, locally, its standing as a culture hero, and looks at religious beliefs, the tiger’s ambivalent nature, and its function as mediator between humans and spirits. Focusing on rituals, it then stresses its benevolence (initiation, redemption, purification), as well as its sinister facets (punishment for breach of taboos), both meant to warrant a ‘cool’ socio-cosmic balance. Next, it investigates the historical role of one chieftain named Tiger who, urging forest nomads to settle down and farm, was instrumental in the emergence of a new ethnocultural cluster’s identity, and it explores the modalities of the myth-generating conflation of historical elements with religious beliefs. Finally, it scrutinizes the tiger’s complex relationship with the moon and thunder, hinting at the pre-existence among former nomads of non-dualistic beliefs in a ‘tiger-moon-thunder’ set of deities and, touching briefly on the ‘thunder complex’ question, it stresses ambiguity and variability, reflecting the systemic cultural plasticity and singular cultural histories of these societies. Due to the study’s broad spectrum, a large reference list is appended.

The early history of nautical technology in the western Indian Ocean and adjoining parts of the African coast is poorly understood. In the absence of evidence from shipwrecks, it has hitherto been based largely on the uncertain interpretation of a few documentary references and speculation surrounding technological parallels and assumed lexical resemblances. This paper examines some of the linguistic evidence in a more rigorous way, by undertaking a cross-dialectal comparison of names for watercraft and terms for outriggers in Swahili (Kiswahili), a Bantu language spoken on the islands and in scattered communities along the western seaboard of the Indian Ocean. The resulting analysis provides a new outline of the development of Swahili nautical technology and maritime culture, highlighting the key role played by particular boat forms, and the relative importance of indigenous innovation and different external influences, including the elusive impacts of Austronesian seafaring.

Rjabchikov, Sergei V., 2019. The Rapanui Manuscript E Reveals Secrets: The Real Bilingual Key to the Rongorongo has been Found. The paper. 6 pages.

The original was first delivered by Sergei V. Rjabchikov as the paper “The Rapanui Manuscript E Reveals Secrets: The Real Bilingual Key to the Rongorongo has been Found” on the scientific session of the Sergei Rjabchikov Foundation – Research Centre for Studies of Ancient Civilisations and Cultures in Krasnodar on February 6, 2019.

Keywords: Easter Island, Rapanui, Rapa Nui, Rapanui, Polynesia, rongorongo, script, writing, Manuscript E, hieroglyphic script

This chapter discusses grammatical relations (GRs) in Balinese (ISO 639-3: ban, Austronesian, spoken by ~3 million, mainly in Bali, Indonesia). It is demonstrated that Balinese typologically shows relational properties typical for the Indonesian type of Austronesian languages, in terms of voice marking, argument marking, GR alternations, and other related processes such as relativisation, reflexivisation and control. In a wider typological context, Balinese shows splitS in terms of verbal morphology. Syntactically the overall grammar of Balinese shows a symmetrical alignment system: actor (A) and patient (P) arguments of transitive verbs can be equally selected as the grammatical subject or Pivot without the demotion of the other. In addition to voice morphology (showing AV, UV, and middle alternations), Balinese also has applicative and causative morphology, which is good evidence that semantic roles and surface grammatical relations are organised as two distinct layers in the grammar. It is demonstrated in this chapter that much of Balinese syntax revolves around the notion of the privileged argument of Pivot, and its related morphosyntactic and morphosemantic properties in the voice system, in both simple and complex structures; e.g. in clausal argument with/without control and adverbial clauses. We start with the distinction between grammatical relations and grammatical functions (section 2), followed by the selecting properties of Pivot (section 3). Balinese grammar also exhibits a set of properties distinguishing core arguments from obliques, discussed in sections 4 and 5. Three-place predicates are discussed in section 6. It is shown that Balinese exhibits a secundative alignment. Adjuncts are very similar to obliques but they are different in certain respects (section 7). Clausal dependants (complements and adverbial clauses) are discussed in sections 8-9. A conclusion is given in section 10.

Among the seventeen languages spoken in the Banks and Torres groups of north Vanuatu, eleven share a TAM category whose functions include sequential, generic, subjunctive, prospective and imperfective. This aspect, labeled here “aorist”, also displays cross-linguistic formal similarities: everywhere, the aorist marker shows allomorphic variation depending on the person of the subject. After comparing the eleven languages concerned, I propose to reconstruct their protosystem as a set of four portmanteau proclitics {*gu–*u–*ni–*(k)a} combining aspect and person.

The development of Austronesian culture was spread out along Southeast Asia and adjacent areas to Pacific Archipelago and Madagascar. This culture originally came f rom Taiwan or Formosa. The topic of this research is how the spreading process of the Austronesian speakers and its influence in culture in Southeast Asia. Focusing the development from Taiwan to all Southeast Asia region within a period of time from 4500 to 1500 years ago by exploring of Austronesia cross the Indian Ocean. This research is using qualitative descriptive methods by analysing Austronesian culture development, which were collected using literature review. The results of the research that Austronesians languages have an important role in various things such as technology of boat building, maritime culture, agrarian culture, burial rituals, and belief in ancestors.

Short essay on the history of indigenous people in Taiwan and their early contacts with Dutch and Han immigrants to the more recent Japanese and new ROC governement periods. The article focuses on how in recent decades the identities of Formosan aboriginal people have been used to shape the new Taiwanese independent nationalism.

Breve artículo sobre la evolución histórica de los aborígenes en la isla de Taiwán y su relación con los pueblos inmigrantes hasta la actualidad. Enfocado en el uso de las identidades de los distintos pueblos aborígenes como reclamo del nuevo nacionalismo independentista taiwanés.

The Formosan languages are the languages of the Aboriginal peoples of Taiwan. These languages are part of the Austronesian language family, and represent all but one primary branch of this family of 1,200+ languages. The Formosan languages are endangered, some critically so. While these languages have seen attention in the literature for their syntactic and phonological systems, little work has been done on their prosodic structure or intonation.

This dissertation analyzes the prosodic structure and intonational phonology of Mantauran Rukai, Budai Rukai, Tsou, Kanakanavu, Hla’alua, Sandimen Paiwan, Piuma Paiwan, Kavalan, Amis, Bunun, Tgdaya Seediq, Truku Seediq, and Pazeh, based on original fieldwork. In addition, archival materials are incorporated into analyses of Tsou, Truku Seediq, Tgdaya Seediq, and Puyuma.

This study finds that the Formosan languages show rich tonal phonologies in their intonational systems, and have complex interactions between stress assignment and morphology. Some examples include the following: Mantauran Rukai, previously described as an initial-stress language, actually has a complex stress assignment system with an alternation between first- and third-syllable stress, which as a system is unique in descriptions of stress assignment in the world’s languages. Hla’alua (Saaroa), previously described as having free variation between antepenultimate and penultimate stress, actually has an accent system in which some lexical items are consistently produced without an accented syllable, while others are. Hla’alua also has a rich tonal phonology assigned at two higher levels of the prosodic hierarchy. Kavalan has a unique rule that causes spreading tones to shift to the opposite domain edge when a certain number of tonal elements are aligned to the same boundary. Elements of the intonational phonology in Amis and Kavalan include glottal stops in addition to tonal elements. Bunun has distinct pitch accent melodies for words vs. clitics.

In addition to the unique features found in individual Formosan languages, this dissertation’s comparative study finds at least two geographic areas within Taiwan in which features of prosody and intonation cluster. One is southwestern Taiwan, including Tsou, Kanakanavu, Hla’alua, and Rukai, which share features including a lack of glide-vowel contrasts and variability of initial H vs. L elements in certain prosodic domains. The other is eastern Taiwan, including Amis, Kavalan, and Puyuma, which share features including suppression of non-IP-final pitch accents, alternations between ultimate and pre-ultimate F0 peaks across intonational contours, and interactions between glottal stop epenthesis and intonational phonology.

The isolating languages of Central Flores (Austronesian) are typologically distinct from their nearby relatives. They have no bound morphology, as well as elaborate numeral classifier systems, and quinary-decimal numeral systems. McWhorter (2019) proposes that their isolating typology is due to imperfect adult language acquisition of a language of Sulawesi, brought to Flores by settlers from Sulawesi in the relatively recent past. I propose an alternative interpretation, which better accounts for the other typological features found in Central Flores: the Central Flores languages are isolating because they have a strong substrate influence from a now-extinct isolating language belonging to the Mekong-Mamberamo linguistic area (Gil 2015). This explanation better accounts for the typological profile of Central Flores and is a more plausible contact scenario.

Rjabchikov, Sergei V., 2021. The Forgotten Key to the Easter Island Writing System. Paper. 4 pages.

Abstract. The rongorongo records in the Esteban Atan manuscript are the real clue to the mysterious script of Easter Island (Rapanui).

The original was first delivered by Sergei V. Rjabchikov as the paper “The Forgotten Key to the Easter Island Writing System” on the scientific session of the Sergei Rjabchikov Foundation – Research Centre for Studies of Ancient Civilisations and Cultures in Krasnodar on November 21, 2021.

Keywords: Easter Island, Rapanui, Rapa Nui, Polynesia, rongorongo, script, writing, hieroglyphic script, folklore, Austronesian

This paper is concerned with a grammatical description of Arta, an under-described language of the Northern Luzon subgroup of Austronesian. Based on my field research conducted in 2012–2013, some basic structures of the language concerning phonology and morphosyntax are described. First I provide an analysis of the phonology, including segmental phonology and syllable structure, and then a detailed description is provided of the morphosyntactic structures and their functions. After basic observations regarding typological characterizations, major word classes, and the case marking system (here we argue for the validity of an ergative-absolutive analysis), the structure of the pronoun and determiner systems is described. Finally an analysis is provided of the structures of predicates, clause, and complex sentences, where the relationship between morphological coding of voice and argument alignments is argued.

Panay is the Philippines' sixth largest island and is home to the lingua franca of Western Visayas, Hiligaynon. Within Panay, the northwestern region is specially diverse, having at least five different languages comprising its local linguistic ecology. These languages include Aklanon (and Malaynon), Kinaray-a and Caluyanen from the Western Visayan branch, in addition of Inati and Capiznon from the Peripheral Visayan branch. Aklanon is particularly known for its unique feature among Visayan languages of having a voiced velar fricative [ɣ]. Using Voronoi mapping, spatial distribution of phonological and lexical features within the province of Aklan and nearby areas will be presented. Particular isoglosses and bundles of isoglosses marking major divisions between dialects at the municipal level will be identified. A similarity matrix based on these lexical and phonological features will also be calculated. Supplementary interpretations will be postulated based on distance-based clustering algorithms.

This thesis researches on aspect and tense in Rukai by focusing on their interpretation and interaction. The issues center on two component parts: the association between morphology and eventuality/situation type, and that between morphology and tense. In the domain of eventuality, I establish a connection between determiner morphology (specifically, the case morphemes) and event structuring at the level of verbal formation. It is argued that Rukai case markers correlate with a set of verbal prefixes that form a part of verbal stems in structuring eventualities. A generalized hypothesis of morphological merger is proposed to account for this morphosyntactic correlation and other formational instances. Secondly, I examine the interrelation of nominalization, voice formation and eventuality. It is argued that nominalization is used to construct a third kind of voice in Rukai, the object voice, in addition to the active and passive. The study indicates that derived nominalized and object voice constructions convey derived states, whose interpretation result from an aspectual shift in the domain of eventuality. In the domain of tense, I investigate the interpretation of tense markers and their interaction with aspect. The way how the nonfuture tense gets interpreted shows that it is temporally indeterminate, but aspectually constrained. The future is characterized by its function as a temporal marker in modal constructions. The interaction of the future tense with modals indicates that it can specify temporal posteriority in modal constructions. Furthermore, it is argued that the perfect aspect forms a complex tense with the nonfuture in conveying a past meaning. The nonfuture and future tenses are further examined in sentences with sub-ordinate clauses. The study shows that the nonfuture and the future tense behave differently with respect to their relation with a reference point in complex sentences. The nonfuture is more restricted than the future tense in that it cannot take a future time as its temporal reference, whereas the future can take a past time as its temporal reference.

The Bunun language is spoken by one of the thirteen officially recognized Austronesian minority groups on the island of Taiwan. Its most marked characteristics are its complex verbal morphology and its unusual argument alignment system. Takivatan Bunun is the third-largest of its five extant dialects and is spoken by a number of small settlements two counties in the central mountains and at the east coast of the island.
Based on more than one year of field work data, this dissertation explores aspects of the grammar of Takivatan as spoken by the people of the villages Ma-yuan and Qi-mei in Hualien County. It is intended as a preliminary to a full descriptive grammar. After an introductory chapter and an overview of Takivatan phonology, Chapter 3 discusses how words and affixes can be defined in Takivatan and gives a general overview of word building processes. Chapter 4 is a concise treatment of compounding, an uncommon and unproblematic process in Takivatan. Chapter 5 discusses TAM affixes. Chapter 6 concisely describes the grammatical and derivational uses of focus suffixes. Chapter 7 is an elaborate discussion and classification of the large set of verbal prefixes in Takivatan. The final chapter concludes with an overview of definiteness markers, personal pronouns, demonstratives and other pronominal forms.

Araki, an unwritten Austronesian language belonging to the Oceanic subgroup, is now spoken by less than a dozen people in a small islet of Vanuatu; it is likely to disappear very soon. As the first ever publication about this language, the present study covers all that it has been possible to gather from it. The core of this book is a grammatical description of Araki: attention has been paid to its phonology and morphology, the inventory of syntactic categories, the internal organisation of noun and verb phrases, the semantics of aspect and mood, complex sentence construction, and many other topics which illustrate the originality of this language. A bilingual lexicon is also provided, as well as a selection of texts.

This paper examined the lexicon of the following languages - Malagasy, Hawaiian, Rapanui, and Tagalog - in order to provide a partial reconstruction of the Austronesian concept of death through semantic networking. Apart from the lexical items, anthropological accounts were also revisited and incorporated into the study. Results show that as expected, these loosely-related representative languages have culture-specific terms instead of cognate-forming words and phrases. However, each of these terms have have shown consistency in the underlying concepts. Many of these words and phrases describe similar beliefs, culture, and traditions, but are termed differently. Furthermore, these are observed to either be as simplistic as a base, or to have been made complex through affixation and other morphological processes. This coherence despite the lack of cognates could show that from a
core concept in the Proto-Austronesian language, these daughter languages developed, either incidentally or in parallel, and diversified, forming, as shown in this study, culture-specific lexicon pertaining to their death culture.

The Palauan language has long presented a phonological puzzle to Austronesianists. Although evidently a single-language branch which must have split away at the time when proto-Malayo-Polynesian (PMP) was in formation, it has undergone a remarkable series of sound-changes which make it appear superficially unlike any other Austronesian language. The paper undertakes to establish evidence for these sound changes and to link them to reconstructed PAN/PMP/PWMP forms. Palau has apparently undergone influence from neighbouring Yapese, an Oceanic language, since some words show highly irregular inherited forms and must have been borrowed.

This paper focuses on lexical nominalization, clausal nominalization and complementation, and relativization in Isbukun Bunun (Formosan, Austronesian). Based on fieldwork in Taoyuan, Kaohsiung in Taiwan, it shows the similarities and dissimilarities between the three different linguistic phenomena. It is found that the Philippine focus system plays a very important role in all three phenomena and that some markers are shared between them.

The Eskimo–Aleut languages are believed to represent a separate prehistoric migration of people from Asia. The more credible proposals on the external relations and prehistoric contacts of Eskimo–Aleut concern one or more of the language families of northern Eurasia. The two serious genetic hypotheses are (1) 'Uralo-Siberian'/'Altaic' or more inclusively (2) 'Nostratic' ('Eurasiatic').

The comparative word list below provides data for connections between Eskimo- Aleut and Austronesian languages. It consists of comparisons of Proto-Eskimo (PE) or Proto-Eskimo-Aleut (PEA) and Proto-Austronesian (PAN) or Proto- Malayo-Polynesian (PMP) words.

The Part I contains canonical comparisons: those with one-to-one sound correspondences/with one other final sound in PE (only in words with the uncontroversial PAN stops and sonants *p, *t, *k, *q, *m, *n + *l, *ŋ) or with regular sound correspondences (PAN *S – PE *c, PAN *s – PE *c, PAN CeC > Yupik CeC, Inupik CiC) and identical or close semantics.

Examples: PAN *sekel 'bend, bow' - PE *cikə- 'to bend down, to lower', PAN
*sukud 'walking stick, cane, staff' - PE *cuka- 'post, pole', PMP *akaR 'root' -
PE *aku 'root of a plant'

The Palau islands are in Micronesia geographically and culturally, but the exact status of the Palauan language within the Austronesian language phylum is far from clear. Where a solid Oceanic cognate set has been established, Palauan is often the only witness for the higher-level subgrouping, which then promotes a reconstruction from proto-Oceanic (POc) up to WMP. The implicit assumption is therefore that the Palauan forms are genuine cognates and not loanwords. In the light of evidence for contact between Micronesia and the Oceanic area, this assumption may be seen as problematic. The paper compiles the evidence for Palauan fish names and other aquatic terminology and argues that many vernacular names are in fact loans from Oceanic. This in turn suggests that we may need to take a more sceptical approach to PMP etymons.

This is a revised and updated version (2020) of a previous paper on this topic

The Bashiic [=Batanic] group of languages includes Tao [=Yami], Itbayat and the dialects of Ivatan, and is spoken on islands in the strait between Southern Taiwan and the Philippines (Ross 2005). Bashiic presents a paradox; although the languages are very close together, it is apparently a primary branch of Western Malayopolynesian and Ross (2005) suggests that the nuclear language was isolated from developments in the remainder of the Philippines. The Tao language shares too much with Ivatan to question the existence of a Bashiic group and is also clearly PMP. Yet some cultural and economic vocabulary is both exotic, different from Ivatan and not obviously Austronesian. The paper tabulates vocabulary which appears to be confined to Bashiic and glosses where Tao has a distinct lexemes. There has clearly been interaction with the languages of Luzon, since Bashiic shares lexical items with them which are not attested in wider Austronesian.

How can this be explained? The Batanes islands have been occupied for a long time, and it seems likely that they were first settled from Taiwan some 4000 years ago (see Tsang 2005 for Lanyu, Mijares et al. 2003 for Itbayat, Bellwood & Dizon (2014) for the Batanes). We do not know how long Lanyu (and Green Island) have been settled, but given the crossing of the Taiwan Strait and the navigational capacities of the early speakers of PMP languages, it seems likely this would also have been in the Neolithic at the very least. As Lanyu oral traditions record, only one village actually acknowledges a link with the Batanes. However, this link was probably important, as settlers from the Batanes, probably Itbayat, may have crossed to Lanyu relatively recently. They seem to have established cultural dominance over the existing residents, to the extent that their language disappeared and was replaced by Tao.

Leiden Research MA Thesis (2018): The first part of this thesis consists of a synchronic phonological description of the Lio language (Austronesian: Flores, Eastern Indonesia) and the second part consists of a comparative reconstruction of the Central Flores Linkage to which it belongs.