Austronesian Dispersal and Comparative Linguistics
Upon reading, “Comparative Linguistics: A Bridge that connects us to languages and people of the past” by Ritsuko Kikusawa, I found myself very interested in a few areas that were discussed within the article. The first being a section in section 2.1 titled, “ Sound Correspondence”. I was very intrigued to see that the six languages compared in, table 1: “A word list of six Polynesian languages”, were very similar. In class a few examples were given, but this table really put this concept into a mind boggling perspective for me. I had no idea that these languages (Tongan, Niuean, Samoan, Rapanui, Maori, and Hawaiian) were that close in comparison. A few words, such as “manu” meaning “bird” and “moa” meaning “fowl”, were exactly the same in spelling across all these languages.
I have studied Japanese for almost five or six years now. I have learned that Japanese is a very specific language that is not very compatible with other languages. It has roots in Chinese, being that the Japanese adopted the Chinese writing system, but other than that it is a very homogenous language. I was searching for language family trees when I stumbled across a great website called, ethonologue.com. The link that I found was for the Austronesia language family at, http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=243-16.
Within that website I looked up the Japanese family. I was not surprised to see that the Japonic family tree only listed Japanese families. In contrast, when I searched the Austronesian family tree I was amazed the vast amounts of groups within this familes. It was by far the biggest family listed on this site. Furthermore, this website broke down each language into great deal when narrowed down to a specific language. I traced down the Hawaiian language, and found some interesting facts. For example, there was a section that listed lexical similarities between, some of the languages listed in Ritsuko Kikusawa’s table 2.1. The languages that were lexically similar with Hawaiian were: 79% with Rarotongan, 77% with Tuamotuan, 76% with Tahitian, 71% with Maori, 70% with Marquesan, and 64% with RapaNui.
I found it very interesting and this might be a good resource for this class. The other link that I am going to provide is a map of the Austronesian languages. I was amazed by how far this language family spans. By far this family spans across a longer distance than any other language.
http://epress.anu.edu.au/austronesians/austronesians/mobile_devices/ch02.html
That’s all I got for this time. Thank you for reading!
I definitely agree with you when you say that other language families don't compare to the Austronesian language family. That's why it's one of the largest language family. It's also interesting when looking at the map of the dispersal of the Austronesian language. You realize how odd that even though the language was thought to have originated in Taiwan, it was able to disperse down through southeast asia and then west towards the Pacific Islands and even to Africa, but it missed other significant parts of Asia like China, Japan, and Korea. Perhaps this calls for more research into the histories of Taiwan when it was inhabited only by aboriginals (Formosan?).
ReplyDeleteIt is amazing how far the Austronesian language family extends. It certainly is curious that the only languages in the Japonic family tree are Japanese languages. It makes me wonder about the roots of Japanese language and where it may have originated from. Perhaps Japanese may be an original language that truly did not come from any other language. The lexical similarities between Hawaiian and other Austronesian languages is most likely due to the dialect chain that we talked about in class. If various islands were able to keep in contact with each other, then many similarities would still exist between their languages.
ReplyDeleteIt seems kind of funny to me that the bubble of the Austronesian language spread in the map you have provided excludes Australia. It does not seem very hard to conceive that the people who were able to traverse the vast Pacific could also make parts of Australia their home and begin some influence. But Australia has mysteriously eluded the effect Austronesian speakers have had in many other places. You also point out how there are, “vast amounts of groups within these families.” I would like to think that this number of languages might be attributed to the relative isolation the many islands of the Pacific enjoyed. It would not take long for each language to develop their unique words and phrases, especially if contact was only made through sea travel.
ReplyDeleteDan,
ReplyDeleteGreat post and links! It really is remarkable how many similarities there are between those six Polynesian languages, especially in the spellings of those particular words, "bird" and "fowl". What I also find to be intriguing is not only the similarities in the spelling of those two particular words, but that throughout all of those Polynesian cultures, there was a need for separate words for “bird” and “fowl”. We know that after all, a fowl is a bird, so why the need for two separate labels in what many people stereotype as primitive societies? This specific labeling shows that across the six Polynesian islands (or groups of islands) there lived people who were very knowledgeable and perceptive of their surroundings. Additionally, after realizing the breadth of the task these people faced in order to discover the islands in Polynesia there is no doubt that these people were pioneers in more than language and voyaging alone. I should be so lucky to be a pioneer in any discipline! :), Leah
It blows me away how vast the Austronesian language family is. I’m wondering exactly how this group outdoes every other language family, if it’s just because of the many dialects and migration patterns people had or another reason. Dialects must be very important, since you said that Hawaiian is so similar to languages such as Rarotongan and Tuamotuan and a few others. This happens with a lot of languages in the Austronesian family of course. Farrah made a good point about how this language family didn’t get to China, Japan, and Korea. Why is this? Were these places just never visited by people speaking Austronesian languages?
ReplyDeleteGreat post, Dan! Personally, I am not surprised to find out exactly the same pronuciation and spelling in some words, like"bird" and "fowl". Because they are from the same language family-Austronesian family. They are defenitely genetically idential. Also as you mentioned, the languages were lexicially similar with Hawaiian were: 79% with Rarotongan, 77% with Tuamotuan, 76% with Tahitian, 71% with Maori, 70% with Marquesan, and 64% with RapaNui. I am wondering how much percentage of similarity are among Rarotongan, Tuamatuan, Tahitian, Maori, Marquesan and RapuNui? I agree with Ritsuko Kikusawa for hypothesis of the Dialect Chains. It made a lot of sense to form of the different dialects originated from the same mother languages. In a word, interaction and migration are vital to the formation of new dialects.
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