Aboriginal language had ice age origins (fwd)

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Aboriginal language had ice age origins

Judy Skatssoon
ABC Science Online
Wednesday, 13 December 2006
http://abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2006/1809514.htm?ancient

[inset - A researcher has suggested that the origin of Aboriginal
language can be traced back to a time when Australia and New Guinea
were one (Image: Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Water)]

Aboriginal languages may be much older than people think, argues a
linguistic anthropologist who says they originated as far back as the
end of the last ice age around 13,000 years ago.

This challenges existing thinking, which suggests Aboriginal languages
developed from a proto-language that spread through Australia 5000 to
6000 years ago.

The key to the new hypothesis is prehistoric Australia's single land
mass 13,000 to 28,000 years ago, when New Guinea and Tasmania were
still attached, says Dr Mark Clendon in the journal Current
Anthropology.

Clendon says the continent, known as Sahul, was relatively densely
populated on the land bridge connecting northern Australia to New
Guinea, now separated by the Arafura Sea.

The other populated area was along what is now Australia's eastern
seaboard.

The two population groups were separated by a vast, cold, windswept,
arid stretch of land that covered most of the continent, says Clendon,
who was with the Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education
when he published the research.

The eastern group spoke a tongue that became what is known today as Pama
Nyugen and includes languages like Pitjantjatjara, Yolngu and Warlpiri.

And the Arafuran group spoke another language used today in northern
Australia today.

"What I'm suggesting is that Pama Nyugen and non-Pama Nyugen languages
go back about 13,000 years to when there was a land bridge between New
Guinea and Australia," he says.

Until now, the reason why these two Aboriginal language groups are so
different, each with a distinct grammar and vocabulary, has been a
mystery.

Climate change

Around 11,000 years ago what was the Arafura plain was flooded by rising
seas as the ice age ended.

This caused the northern people to migrate into either New Guinea or to
northern parts of Australia.

Meanwhile, increased rainfall and warmer temperatures made inland parts
of the continent more habitable and sparked a westward migration of
eastern dwellers.

This introduced their language group to more central areas of Australia.

Both groups maintained their distinct languages, Clendon says.

His hypothesis provides an alternative picture to the traditional view
that 6000 years ago a single proto-language spread from the Gulf of
Carpentaria around Australia, eventually giving rise to existing
Aboriginal languages.

"We know about changes in climate and sea levels at the end of the
Pleistocene era," Clendon says.

"I'm suggesting the way languages are configured in Australia today are
a result of those changes that happened at the end of the ice age."

Provocative but unconvincing

Writing in a reply to Clendon's article, Professor Nicholas Evans, an
expert in Aboriginal languages from the University of Melbourne,
describes Clendon's hypothesis as "fresh and provocative".

However, he says there are flaws in the argument, including that there
is only weak evidence of similarities between southern New Guinea and
northern Aboriginal languages.

Evans says he remains to be convinced about Clendon's proposal.

"[But] it adds a welcome alternative to a field in which we are still a
long way from having any clear picture of the unimaginably long human
occupation of Sahul," he says.



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