GREEK PREHISTORY AND LANGUAGE

[Ross Clark]

>>> Stanley Friesen <sarima at ix.netcom.com> 10/20 4:20 PM >>>

><<In the Pacific islands, the replacement of many of the Polynesian languages
>by various European Creoles was *not* accompanied by a
>complete"europeanization" of these islands.  Quite the contrary.  Even to
>this day the peoples of these islands still retain many of the cultural
>practices from before, and continue to make many of the same cultural
>artifacts (e.g. stone heads).  A future archeologist is likely to argue that
>"there is a continuity in many aspects of the Pacific island material culture
>...".>>

I hesitated to question this paragraph, not wanting to start a
discussion in an area remote from Indo-European, but since Stanley
Friesen's "example" seems to have been taken up as exemplifying or
demonstrating something, I must ask how these "Pacific islands" are
related to the ones I am familiar with?

(1) I know of only one Polynesian language which has (largely) been
replaced by a European Creole, namely Hawaiian.

(2) I'm not sure where they make "stone heads" in the Pacific islands.

(3) The last couple of centuries have seen the extremely rapid
introduction of metal tools and abandonment of stone tool making,
sometimes even before direct contact with Europeans. Adzes, knives, fish
hooks, needles and other hard artefacts would shift entirely to new
materials and designs within a short space of time. Some continuity
might be found in the archaeological record in such things as house
building, cooking in the earth oven, manufacture of shell valuables and
so on. But this would be accompanied by an influx of completely new
types of artefacts -- bottles, coins, tobacco pipes etc.

(4) This unmistakeable archaeological break takes place, note, *before*
large scale linguistic replacement, which is (contra Stanley Friesen)
still in the future for most of the Pacific islands.

So where does this leave the analogy?

Ross Clark