<div style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">===========================================<br>L O W L A N D S - L - 22 October 2009 - Volume 02<br style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);"><a href="mailto:lowlands@lowlands-l.net">lowlands@lowlands-l.net</a> - <a href="http://lowlands-l.net/">http://lowlands-l.net/</a></span><br style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">
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===========================================<br></div><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="gI"><span class="gD" style="color: rgb(91, 16, 148);">Paul Tatum</span> <span class="go"><<a href="mailto:ptatum@blueyonder.co.uk">ptatum@blueyonder.co.uk</a>></span></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="gI">LL-L "Language varieties" 2009.10.21 (03) [EN]<br><br></span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">How do, Ron et al.,</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
From: R. F. Hahn <<a href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com" target="_blank">sassisch@yahoo.com</a> <br>
</blockquote>
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
You suggested:<br>
<br>
 > Another nice example of the development of an isolated language might be that of the Australian languages.<br>
<br>
Well, Paul, this is where you can run into trouble, at least
theoretically. Whenever you are dealing with landmasses you are also
dealing with the possibility of contacts and "contamination."<br>
</blockquote><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Dibs - I said "might be" ! :-)</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Yes, due to European settlements it was mostly the coastal Australian
languages that first became threatened and eventually extinct, with the
exception of the northern coast. Furthermore, it seems to be true, by
and large, that after the demise of the theoretical land bridge, the
languages of Australia came to be cut off from the rest of the world
"by and large" because I have to add that apparently there were
contacts between precolonial Australians and Austronesian travelers
from what are now parts of Indonesia. (This seems to account for canoe
building and non-percussive musical instruments on Australia's northern
coast.)<br>
<br>
It has been mostly the desert languages of Australia that hung into the
20th and 21th centuries. Compare them -- spread over vast and (to us)
inhospitable tracts of land -- and you'll find lots of similarities,
even where languages seem to be "unrelated". <br>
</blockquote><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Most of my knowledge, such as it is, derives from R. Dixon's Languages of Australia. On page 228, he says :</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
"It seems clear, then, that nearly all the languages of Australia form
one genetic family, going back to a single original language, pA. And
it is probable that pA was spoken at a considerable time in the past.
The present linguistic situation in Australia has had thousands -
perhaps tens of thousands - of years to evolve. It is likely that
during this period there has been no significant contact with any other
languages." This evolution occurred in a very stable political
environment, with only gradual shifting of territories - "there is
evidence that many Australian communities have lived in their present
territory for a considerable time"</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Most of all, there are</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
phonological similarities such as retroflexion, features that do not
seem to be conditioned by physiological features. This suggests
contacts, even if we assume, as is commonly done, that indigenous
Australian ancestors arrived on the continent in waves and that
language classification ought to reflect this.<br>
<br>
</blockquote><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
On the same page, he refers to  anthropologists suggesting 2,200 years
being sufficient time to settle the whole continent to the population
depth encountered in 1788, though of course sufficiency isn't
necessarily the time it did take, only a minimum. While Australia might
be a marginal example of an isolated language, I think it is
interesting as an example of slow in-situ evolution, as a corollary to
the Polynesian case, where the boundaries between languages are physical</span><font style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" color="#888888"><br>
<br>
Paul Tatum.</font><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">----------</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: R. F. Hahn <</span><a style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com" target="_blank">sassisch@yahoo.com</a><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject: Language varieties</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Thanks, Paul.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><div style="margin-left: 40px; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">On the same page, he refers to  anthropologists suggesting 2,200 years
being sufficient time to settle the whole continent to the population
depth encountered in 1788, though of course sufficiency isn't
necessarily the time it did take, only a minimum. While Australia might
be a marginal example of an isolated language, I think it is
interesting as an example of slow in-situ evolution, as a corollary to
the Polynesian case, where the boundaries between languages are physical</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></div><font style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" color="#888888"><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">I agree.<br><br>On the basis of archeological finds (and I was once fortunate enough to accompany archeologists on exploratory spelunking in Southwestern Australia) it is now pretty much agreed upon that human habitation in Australia began </span></font><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">between 42,000 and 48,000 years ago! </span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Most archeologists agree upon there having been three immigration waves: (1) "negrito" Tasmanians, (2) Murrayans, and (3) Carpentarians.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">There seem to have been at least occasional, casual contacts between north coast Australians and Malaiic islanders, as I had mentioned. They came from roughly the same area from which Netherlanders later "discovered" Australia. Also, in China awareness of Australia's existence may go back at least to the Yuan (Mongol) dynasty (å…ƒæœ, 1271-1368), perhaps referred to by the Venetian merchant adventurer Marco Polo (1254-1324) as "Isle of Gold," and possibly by 16th-century Portuguese explorers as "Great Java". On his 1603 map based in part on Chinese sources, the Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) jotted next to a landmass clearly representing Australia the Chinese equivalents of "Fire Land" and "Land of Parrots." It has also been suggested that the famous 15th-century Muslim Chinese (Hui) explorer Zheng He (é„å’Œ) and his fleet visited Australia, though most historians dismiss this as unfounded. Chinese knowledge may well be indirect, namely based on reports of Southeast Asians which whom they traded. This may well have something to do with Macassans having supplied China with the much coveted trepang (sea cucumber, bêche-de-mer, hải sâm, ナマコ, æµ·åƒ, <i>Holothuroidea</i>) from the Gulf of Carpentaria for centuries.<br>
<br>At any rate, signs of fairly early awareness of Australia as well as assigned attributes to that land seem to suggest that, going back quite a few centuries, at least the northern coast was not totally cut off from the rest of the world.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Regards,</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Reinhard/Ron</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Seattle, USA</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
•
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