Oceanic languages
| Oceanic | |
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution | Eastern Malayo-Polynesian
|
| Proto-language | Proto-Oceanic |
| Subdivisions |
|
Central Eastern Oceanic )
St Matthias | |
The approximately 450 Oceanic languages are a branch of the
Classification
The Oceanic languages were first shown to be a language family by Sidney Herbert Ray in 1896 and, besides Malayo-Polynesian, they are the only established large branch of Austronesian languages. Grammatically, they have been strongly influenced by the Papuan languages of northern New Guinea, but they retain a remarkably large amount of Austronesian vocabulary.[1]
Lynch, Ross, & Crowley (2002)
According to Lynch, Ross, & Crowley (2002), Oceanic languages often form linkages with each other. Linkages are formed when languages emerged historically from an earlier dialect continuum. The linguistic innovations shared by adjacent languages define a chain of intersecting subgroups (a linkage), for which no distinct proto-language can be reconstructed.[2]
Lynch, Ross, & Crowley (2002) propose three primary groups of Oceanic languages:
- Oceanic
- Admiralties linkage: languages of Manus Island, its offshore islands, and small islands to the west.
- Admiralties) and the western Solomon Islands. West Oceanic is made up of three or four sub-linkages and families:
- ? Sarmi–Jayapura linkage: maybe part of the North New Guinea linkage?
- North New Guinea linkage: consists of languages of the north coast of New Guinea, east from Jayapura.
- Meso-Melanesian linkage: consists of languages of the Bismarck Archipelago and Solomon Islands.
- Papuan Tip linkage: consists of languages of the tip of the Papuan Peninsula.
- Central–Eastern Oceanic (CEOc) linkage: nearly all languages of Oceania not included in the Admiralties and Western Oceanic. Central–Eastern consists of four or five subgroups:
- Southeast Solomonic linkage: of the South East Solomon Islands.
- (Utupua–Vanikoro linkage: later removed to Temotu languages).
- Southern Oceanic linkage: consists of languages of New Caledonia and Vanuatu.
- Central Oceanic linkage: consists of the Polynesian languages, and the languages of Fiji.
- Micronesian linkage.
The "residues" (as they are called by Lynch, Ross, & Crowley), which do not fit into the three groups above, but are still classified as Oceanic are:
- St. Matthias Islands linkage.
- ? Yapese language: of the island of Yap. Perhaps part of the Admiralties?
Ross & Næss (2007) removed Utupua–Vanikoro, from Central–Eastern Oceanic, to a new primary branch of Oceanic:[3]
- Temotu linkage, named after the Temotu Province of the Solomon Islands.
Blench (2014)[4] considers Utupua and Vanikoro to be two separate branches that are both non-Austronesian.
Ross, Pawley, & Osmond (2016)
Ross, Pawley, & Osmond (2016) propose the following revised rake-like classification of Oceanic, with 9 primary branches.[5]: 10
- Oceanic
- Yapese language
- Admiralty languages
- Tench)
- Western Oceanic linkage
- Meso-Melanesian linkage
- New Guinea Oceanic linkage
- Temotu languages
- Southeast Solomonic languages
- Southern Oceanic linkage
- North Vanuatu linkage
- Nuclear Southern Oceanic linkage
- Micronesian languages
- Central Pacific languages
- Western Central Pacific linkage
- Eastern Central Pacific linkage
- Eastern Fijian languages
- Polynesian languages
Non-Austronesian languages
Other languages traditionally classified as Oceanic that Blench (2014) suspects are in fact non-Austronesian include the
Blench (2014) proposes that languages classified as:
- Austronesian, but perhaps actually non-Austronesian are spoken in northern Vanuatu and southern Vanuatu (North Vanuatu languages and South Vanuatu languages).
- Austronesian, but may have experienced bilingualism with non-Austronesian are spoken in central Vanuatu and New Caledonia (Central Vanuatu languages and New Caledonian languages).
- non-Austronesian, with some other languages traditionally classified as Austronesian may perhaps actually be non-Austronesian are spoken in the Solomon Islands and New Britain (various Meso-Melanesian languages).
Word order
Word order in Oceanic languages is highly diverse, and is distributed in the following geographic regions (Lynch, Ross, & Crowley 2002:49).
- Subject–verb–object: Admiralty Islands, most of Markham Valley, Siasi Islands, most of New Britain, New Ireland, some parts of Bougainville Island, most parts of the southeast Solomon Islands, most parts of Vanuatu, some parts of New Caledonia, most of Micronesia
- Subject–object–verb: central and southeast Papua New Guinea, some parts of Markham Valley, Madang coast, Wewak coast, Sarmi coast, a few parts of Bougainville, some parts of New Britain
- Nggela
- Object-initial: only two, object-subject-verb)
- Santa Ysabel Island
See also
References
- ^ Mark Donohue and Tim Denham, 2010. Farming and Language in Island Southeast Asia: Reframing Austronesian History. Current Anthropology, 51(2):223–256.
- ISBN 978-0-41552-789-7.
- hdl:1885/20053.
- ^ a b Blench, Roger. 2014. Lapita Canoes and Their Multi-Ethnic Crews: Might Marginal Austronesian Languages Be Non-Austronesian? Paper presented at the Workshop on the Languages of Papua 3. 20–24 January 2014, Manokwari, West Papua, Indonesia.
- ^ Ross, Malcolm; Pawley, Andrew; Osmond, Meredith (eds). The lexicon of Proto Oceanic: The culture and environment of ancestral Oceanic society. Volume 5: People: body and mind. 2016. Asia-Pacific Linguistics (A-PL) 28.
Bibliography
- JSTOR 20701407.
- OCLC 48929366.
- hdl:1885/20053.
| National | |
|---|---|
| Other | |
