FWD: Inquiry: Use of term "Negrito" for Austronesian & Southeast Asian languages (fwd)

[LV Hayes]

>Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2001 15:31:57 +0200
>From: Waruno Mahdi <mahdi at FHI-Berlin.MPG.DE>
>
>On and around the Malayan Peninsula, some ethnic groups with high
>"negrito"-percentage speak Austronesian languages, others speak
>Aslian languages, which belong to the Austro-Asiatic language family
>or philum. I understand that results of recent investigations
>suggest that the Aslian languages are closely related to Mon, and
>that they together with Mon form a subgroup within Mon-Khmer (East
>Austro-Asiatic).

What investigations are those, Waruno?  I haven't heard of anything along
that line, but this is not particularly surprising.

The "latest" thing I've seen in re Aslian subgrouping is Benjamin's
lexicostatistical study in Austroasiatic Studies, Part I, published in 1976
(!), which indicates that Aslian branched off from Austroasiatic somewhere
around the fabulously remote date of 6,000 B.P.  It seems unlikely to me
that the Monic branch of Mon-Khmer could date back so far, even if
Benjamin's dating is off by several thousand years, but I have nothing to
substantiate my doubts.

>In the Philippines, peoples with high "negrito"-percentage are
>usually referred to collectively as Aeta. Their languages are, so
>far as I know, all Austronesian (but I am not 100% sure on this
>point).

What about language isolates in Indonesia, of which I've heard some mention
somewhere?  Are any of them non-Austronesian and more to the point spoken
by "negrito" groups?

LV Hayes
<lvhayes at worldnet.att.net>