Australian Languages

[Rick Mc Callister]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
At 9:43 AM -0400 5/12/98, Katachumen wrote:
[snip]
>Well, I was simply following suggestions by others (Ruhlen et al.) about the
>affinities of Tasmanian, [snip]
 
        Greenberg, I've been told, came up with this idea but Greenberg's
latter work has been pretty controversial. Given that whoever the
Tasmanians' ancestors were, they almost certainly passed through New
Guinea, there probably is a genetic relationship between Tasmanian and New
Guinea languages but the question is whether or not it can be proved.
 
>But my main point was that we should question any hypothesis which suggests
>that Australia was settled once and once only, c. 50000 BC, and then was
>subsequently isolated from the rest of humanity until modern times.
 
[snip]
 
        I've read in various sources, among them Cavalli-Sforza, that there
were at least 3 different settlements of Australia. Cavalli-Sforza,
however, is about as controversial as Greenberg. His logic on that point
did make quite a bit of sense --by linking one of the migrations to
Australia to the arrival of the dingo, more advanced technology, etc.
        Now, the question is, why wouldn't Australian languages be more
closely related to languages from New Guinea than Tasmanian languages were?
Australia, according to what I've read, was settled from New Guinea. The
only other language group in the area is Malayo-Pacific and --as far as I
know-- no one claims that Australian is related to Malayo-Pacific.
        Yes, I'm being a bit disengenuous in light of the fact that
Malayo-Pacific arrived in that area  only a few thousand years ago or so.
But do we know what the linguistic state of New Guinea was 10,000 years ago
or so? Was there a language change with the arrival of cultivation, etc.?
 
 
Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
MUW
Columbus MS 39701
rmccalli at sunmuw1.muw.edu