Odp: [tied] Desatemized Germanic

The ocean IS a natural barrier to Polynesians simply because the distances between the islands are huge, the islands are usually rather small and linguistic interaction within each speech community is several orders of magnitude more intensive than any external contacts. This would not be true of Melanesia or Indonesia, for example, but I was talking of POLYNESIA and the POLYNESIAN branch (which does have a very neat family tree indeed), not of the Austronesian family in general. In favourable circumstances (a larger archipelago with easy island-to-island communication, as in Fiji), areal diffusion of course plays an important role.

Piotr

-----Wiadomoœæ orginalna-----
Od: tgpedersen@... <tgpedersen@...>
Do: cybalist@yahoogroups.com <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Data: 7 marca 2001 12:29
Temat: [tied] Desatemized Germanic

Torsten: The sea is a "natural barrier" to the Polynesians? A-hm! Because of my wild claims of Sundaland I've had to read some of the Proto-Austronesian reconstruction stuff, and they all seem to agree that it is impossible to construct neat family trees for Austronesian such as are known from Indo-European studies.