From: tgpedersen@...
Message: 5791
Date: 2001-01-26
--- In cybalist@..., "Guillaume JACQUES" <xiang@...> wrote:
[snip]
>
> GJ:
> Both srcheologists and linguists specialized in AN agree that AN
languages are originated from Taiwan. As I pointed out earlier on
this list, the Malayo-polynesian languages are just the last sub-
branch of one group of Formosan languages. Any reconstruction of AN
that does not take languages of Taiwan as a basis is deemed to remain
at the Malayo-polynesian level (ca 3000 BC). This has far-reaching
consequences when you try to make external comparison (for example,
PMP *mata 'eye' is now reconstructed *maCa, the segments C and t
merged in PMP and some formosan languages)/
> Agriculture seems to tell us that Austronesian arrived in Taiwan by
6000 BC, beginning of the Neolithic (that is the date given by Blust,
Starosta and Reid). Much/ data seem also to indicate that AN lang.
are originated from northern China, but this list is not the proper
place to discuss that.
> The only serious external comparisons with AN are Austro-asiatic
(mostly morphological) and Sino-tibetan (many affixes, more than 30
words in Swadesh's list of 200 basic words)
>
> In any case, Manasala doesn't seem to understand pAN reconstruction
well.
>
> Guillaume
Anyone looking the 8000 BC level will have to deal with the fact that
most of the sea around Indonesia and up to Taiwan was dry land.
Who lived there? What language did they speak?
And if we want to incorporate the three Taiwanese branches of
Austronesian, how can we be sure the Urheimat of the speakers of
that proto-tongue is not now very wet? Ballard hasn't been there
yet. It looks as if the Urheimat-seekers have forgotten to take
account of the sea-level rise facts.
But this is the side of the argumentation I will leave to
Oppenheimer. If one is interested in these questions, "Eden in
the East" is very relevant.
Torsten