Re: OE *picga

--- In cybalist@..., "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

> I think you mean this:
> "
> To my mind, there is one explanation for this: The Austronesians
> originally must have had the East/Southeast Asian species which

they

> took with them on their migrations. Those who settled in Maluku,
> however, met upon a different species, which was better

acclimatized

> to the local tropical conditions, and gradually replenished their
> stock with the local species, but retaining the word for pig they
> already had in their language. In other words, the ancestors of the
> Oceanic Austronesians must have shared a longer stay in Maluku

before

> moving on eastwards.
> "
>
> Occam said: Entia non sunt multiplicanda (sine ratione). Most

people

> leave out the last part. Mahdi's explanation lacks the reason

(well,

> a sound one), since he is trying to preserve a theory (Austronesian
> out-of-Taiwan) that doesn't have much going for it, since it seems

to

> forget that geography was much different, when the events in it
> should have taken place. That doesn't mean that I reject this type

of

> explanation on principle. But I think I read somewhere that

european

> pigs had Asian genes in them.

The article on reclassifying the species of Babyrousa (another genus
in the pig family) in
http://arts.anu.edu.au/awpn/newsletters/newsletter2(1)s.pdf takes it
as a given that Babyrousa babyrussa [sic] was introduced to the
islands East of Sulawesi it now occupies. Perhaps there were many
attempts at domestication within a very small area!

Incidentally, is there a *short* explanation of why there are wild
(not feral) pigs East of the Wallace line in Sulawesi, never mind in
the Moluccas?

Richard.