Questioning of the elite dominance theory

[And Rosta]

Ross Clark:

> From: Stanley Friesen [mailto:sarima at friesen.net]
> At 05:05 PM 11/13/00 +1100, Tristan Jones wrote:

>>> small. Maybe that inclusive elite thing might explain the success of spread
>>> of Arabic over vast areas of Middle East and Africa, Mandarin and Cantonese
>>> over huge areas of China, I think before the spread of Chinese Empire,
>>> Austronesian Languages would have been spoken over large areas of Southern
>>> China's Rice Growing Zones.

>> I think this is fairly well established.  Certainly there are still relict
>> Austronesian languages in Southern China even today.

> No. The only AN language in China today (apart from Taiwan of course) is
> Tsat, spoken by a few thousand people on Hainan island, and it is a
> relatively late intrusion from further south. That Chinese replaced
> Austronesian languages as it expanded is quite possible, but none of them
> survived on the mainland.

(Not really relevant to the elite dominance thread or to IE list, but...:)
Laurent Sagart told me a few years back that he'd published a hypothesis
that Chinese is AN (I don't know whether the Tibetan half of S-T is), and
it expanded its territory at the expense of its close AN kin, the spread
being due to a 'millet cult'.

Unfortunately I no longer have the reference for this, the paper dealing
with China as the AN homeland (because my university now and again likes
to delete its employees' saved email for them). (If anyone would care to
point me to literature discussing this issue (off-list, if appropriate),
I'd be most grateful.)

--And Rosta.