Talk:Austronesian languages

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What about 'wiki'-'wiki'. I thought that meant quicker. In that case, the duplication is not a plural.

Reduplication has a number of functions in most Austronesian languages just as it has in many other languages. Forming plurals is only one of them.

Contents

[edit] 'vowels are quite commen'???

'vowels are quite common'??? What's that supposed to mean?

I'm not sure what the author of the article meant when he/she were writing this, but I think this must refer to the syllabic structure of the languages in the group. In Malay, for example, you can only have the structure "CV" or "CVC", like in the word tidur (tee-door). In Hawaiian, "CV" is even the only possible syllabic structure. <Barra>

I've reverted this because the links must go to the language - not the island. ie to Tongan not Tonga. Secretlondon 11:25, Dec 3, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] "low entropy"?

and, "the text is quite repetitive in terms of the frequency of sounds"? I'm wondering what this is supposed to mean. Perhaps it's saying that Austronesian languages typically have smallish inventories of phonemes? If so, why not say it like that?

You're right on the smallish phoneme inventory. But low entropy here, in my opinion, can as well mean smallish number of possible syllables. In English you can have "drum", "drab", "dream", "drown", "drive", "drop", etc. i.e. so many possible syllables can be formed from a single consonant cluster. Chinese, in contrast, have small syllabic repertoire. There are "xin", "xian", "xiao" but no "xa", "xo", or "xui". The same can be said with the majority of Austronesian languages. <Barra>

Sorry, but "entropy" is a meaningless word linguistically. Saying Chinese has low "entropy" because its phonotactics allow xia but not xa is like saying English has low entropy because it allows [hæŋ] but not *[ŋæh]. kwami 11:20, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] yamayama

I just learned that the iterative version of mountain in Japanese yama, is yamayama (many mountains). This is identical in usage in the Austronesian language family. Ancheta Wis 21:47, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes, reduplication expressing plurality (or iterativity, a kind of plurality) is found in many languages the world over. Dougg 07:47, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

On the other hand, there are many Austronesian loans in Japanese. This fact led to a hypothesis, believed by some linguists that Japanese is in fact a language with an Austonesian substratum and Altaic superstratum. Meursault2004 07:56, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Is there a list out there of these loans? I tried finding them myself, but was unsuccessful. I heard the same thing about Okinawan, too, but I went through my Okinawan books and couldn't find any words that could be Austronesian. I think the only Japanese word that was similar is 飲む nomu meaning to drink. The root is inom in Tagalog. --Chris S. 12:32, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
Unfortunately I don't have any list either. Other examples are ki (tree, wood. Malay: kayu), hi (fire. PAN *Xapuy) and sawa (swamp. Malay: sawah, "paddyfield"). BTW I think the Talagog inom is a passive form. In Old Javanese, the word for water is wway or wwe. To drink is umwe and inum(we) is a passive form based on an active verbal form. Meursault2004 13:01, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Austronesian subgrouping

Austronesian was never 'formerly referred to as Malayo-Polynesian'. Austronesian consists of two subgroups, Malayo-Polynesian languages and Formosan languages, the latter being spoken within Taiwan. It was only when it was realised that the Formosan languages group with the Malayo-Polynesian that it was decided to have a new top-level name to refer to these two groups, but Malayo-Polynesian was never used to refer to what is now known as Austronesian.

Malayo-Polynesian is in turn divided into Western and Central-Eastern. The Western subgroup is not also known as 'Continental' (there are only a very few Austronesian languages found in continental Asia), and the Central-Eastern is not also known as Oceanic, that's a separate subgroup at a lower level.

If no-one minds, I'll try to fix this up sometime. -Dougg

From the article: "All of the said languages except Hawai'ian have official status in the countries and territories of the Pacific Ocean." However, the article Hawaiian states that the Hawaiian language is an official language of the State of Hawaii. What exactly this means, of course, is up to some question. --FOo 07:29, 25 Jan 2004 (UTC)

How about Melanesian languages? These are also Austronesian, aren't they? Meursault2004 18:53, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)

No. They're in another group entirely. <Barra>

Of course they're Austronesian. The vast majority of Austronesian languages were formerly called Melanesian, though the term has no genealogical significance today. kwami 11:23, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I do confirm that they are Austronesian. It's strange to stress on that even at the beginnings of linguistics, a lot of specialists considered (wrongly) the melanesians as quite different from the other Austronesians. Mostly racism. Enzino 19:49, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

No, Melanesian languages are those spoken in Melanesia: this is not a linguistic genetic grouping, although it may reflect biological genetics (see below). Melanesia refers to New Guinea and the nearby islands to the east, where people have noticeably darker skin ('melanesia' = 'black islands') and includes Fiji, New Caledonia and Vanuatu (all having Austronesian languages only), the Solomons (both Austronesian and Papuan languages) and the other islands westwards up to and including New Guinea and a couple of islands further east (a mixture of Austronesian and Papuan languages, the latter in a number of groupings). This term was applied in the 19th century, along with the other terms Polynesia (many islands) and Micronesia (small islands). (by Jules Dumont d'Urville, a French explorer, in 1831, Enzino)

It may be that the reason for people across this contiguous area having similarly darker skin (than their Polynesia and Indonesian neighbours) is due to the pre-existing Papuan population. On the other hand, it may be something environmental, or something else. Dougg

It is not currently accepted as a cladistic node, but it once was. If I remember correctly, the c. 1950 Columbia Encyclopedia divided Malayo-Polynesian into Western and Eastern, with Eastern divided into Melanesian, Micronesian, and Polynesian. Linguistic classifications followed racial classifications for centuries.
As for the earlier point about AN and MP never being synonymous, even the 15th edition (1980) of the Encyclopedia Britannica starts its article with "The Austronesian language family, also called Malayo-Polynesian". It divides the languages into Western AN, or Indonesian (including the Formosan languages as a sub-sub-subgroup: the Formosan languages have been recognized as AN for centuries; and all of modern Western and Central MP), and Eastern AN, or Oceanic (modern Eastern MP). It gives an alternate classification, where Western AN is broken up into Atayalic, Hesperonesian, and various Eastern Indonesian branches, but Oceanic is still a primary branch. At least Melanesian is no longer recognized by this point. --kwami 07:20, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Melanesian is not a branch. The former subgroupings were exactly based on Jules Dumont d'Urville (racial) classification. The colour of Melanesian and its origin is a (racial) legend. All the Austronesian have been in contact with Papua, including Polynesians and Micronesians, please for more details, have a look on The Lexicon of Proto-Oceanic, Ross, Pawley and Osmond, Pacific Linguistics 545, ANU, Canberra 1998 (vol I) and 2003 (vol II).Enzino

[edit] Theories of migration

Aren't there competing theories of how the languages have spread? If so, it'd be better to present alternatives. Right now only one is presented and with rather strong emphasis (e.g. word such as confirmed). I prefer "supported" rather than "confirmed". 67.242.100.213 00:16, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC).

Of course, there are competing theories. One good book on this matter is On the road of the winds (An Archaelogical History of the Pacific Islands before European Contact, of Patrick Vinton Kirch, University of California Press, 2000). It describes the different theories. But the indicated theory is the good last one... Enzino 09:22, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Stephen Oppenheimer has written a book "Eden in the East" (ISBN 0753806797) in which he proposes that the original Austronesian homeland was the Ice Age Sundaland continental shelf. The main reasons he suggests that the homeland can't be either Taiwan or China (both of which incidentally would have formed part of the extended east Asian landmass during the Ice Age) - a) There are no Malayo-Polynesian languages hailing from Taiwan. If there is no evidence for Malayo-Polynesian in Taiwan, there is no reason why the deep diversity of the Formosan languages cannot be a result of their island isolation after the Ice Age; b) no prima facie evidence for a direct mainland Chinese origin for Austronesian. Unlike Chinese languages, Austronesian languages are neither tonal nor monosyllabic. Even if one takes issue with the above, ask yourself: "Why would people migrate at the end of an Ice Age?" Yes, you've got it! The loss of their original homeland due to flooding/sea level rise! Sunil 131.111.36.48 17:06, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

All the Stephen Oppenheimer stuff is extremely interesting and certainly has relatively more credibility than say Dan Brown... but I don't think it has enough support among mainstream academia to warrant putting it on a page about Austronesian languages. :-)
--Ling.Nut 02:58, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Why not? Do the "mainstream" academics have an explanation for why the Austronesians first started migrating, and why there are no Malayo-Polynesian languages spoken in Taiwan? Sunil 131.111.36.48 17:15, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Stephen Oppenheimer is a credible academic, but his ideas are not representative of the academic consensus on the origin of Austronesian languages. Since his ideas about the origins of Austronesian are a one-man theory, I think they should go on the Stephen Oppenheimer page with a link from Austronesian Languages#Homeland.
As to why there aren't Malayo-Polynesian languages in Taiwan, I think the more cogent question is why aren't there representatives of the other 9 top level supgroups of Austronesian outside of Taiwan -- this is after all the most important linguistic evidence for a Taiwanese homeland. And as to tone and whatnot, check out Chinese language#History. Tone and monosyllabicity both developed in Chinese in the last 3000 years, i.e. long after the Austronesian expansion got under way. So that's not evidence (and did Stephen Oppenheimer really present this as such? Or are you inserting your own hypotheses? Because that's not really done on WP). And your third point was the ice age/flooding thing: possible of course, but sunken homeland hypotheses abound, and they're really hard to (dis)prove. Lots of other migrations have happened in the world without flooding, so I don't see that it provides any knock-down proof either. -- Ngio 23:20, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
I've gone ahead an made the changes myself. 131.111.36.48 hasn't responded, and I didn't want to leave the page in the state it was in for too long. I haven't made any changes to the Stephen Oppenheimer page—it mentions 'Eden in the East' already, but not in the context of Austronesian. Somebody who has read the book will have to fix it. Cheers, Ngio 08:32, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
After looking into it further it seems that Stephen Oppenheimer is backing away from his previous linguistic claims and coming to accept that the root of the Austronesian language family is indeed in Taiwan, although he maintains his stance that the geographic origin of the mtDNA markers associated with Austronesian language speakers was in island South East Asia. I'm going to remove the (already truncated) note about him from this page -- it might be appropriate to Austronesian people, but it's not very relevant here, and this page is already a bit cluttered with minority views. -- Ngio 23:04, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A new stub category has been created

A new stub category has been created specifically for Austronesian languages: {{au-lang-stub}}. Use {{au-lang-stub}} rather than {{stub}} or {{lang-stub}} to label stubs on Austronesian languages as such.

Stub categorizing is a convenient way to keep track of Austronesian-related stubs and additionally helps in keeping the category of language stubs usable. Whoever feels like it, is invited to browse Category:Language stubs to sift out any Austronesian language stubs... Thanks!

For discussion see: WP:WSS/Stub types#Language and literature and WP:WSS/Criteria#Split of lang-stub. — mark ✎ 23:20, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Banyumasan

The so-called 'Banyumasan language' is just a dialect of Javanese, not an independent language. There are far too many similarities with other variants of Javanese to be called a separate language in its own. See also my comment in the talk page of the Banyumasan language. Meursault2004 09:22, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Changing Oceanic Grouping

I'm thinking of changing the Oceanic grouping to follow Lynch, Ross and Crowley (2002) The Oceanic Languages. I think this source is more standard for the Oceanic languages the one used, although they're both the same year (with one of the authors the same). Since this will require a number of changes, I thought I'd post this here for a bit before going ahead and doing it.--Sheena V 00:11, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I would love to see that. I redid the Western MP classification following the articles in Wouk & Ross some time ago, so this would make wikipedia more consistant. The current Oceanic classification I believe is just that of Ethnologue, except for the position of Yapese, which follows suggestions in Wouk & Ross. kwami 01:46, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Okay - I've redone this, and I plan on adding articles for each of the subgroups. I also changed the heading of this section from Consensus Malayo-Polynesian classification to Malayo-Polynesian classification. I wasn't too sure what was meant by 'Consensus' here. Presumably, it's talking about a consensus that some people had come to about the classification - but it's not too clear (consesus by who?). Anyways, I think having the references there is enough. But if someone wants to put it back in, go ahead. Maybe just change something so that it's a bit clearer what it means. Thanks!--Sheena V 12:31, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Many of those articles are already written, so I'm linking to them. I think your time would be better spent updating what's already here! Thanks for the contribution. These leaves only Central MP and Eastern MP beyond Oceanic mired in the 20th century. kwami 19:53, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] why are some languages not listed as Major languages

  • Gilbertese (i-Kiribati) (68,000)
  • Maori (60,000)
  • Marshallese (> 44,000)
  • Hawaiian (1000 native, 8000 competent)

are listed as major, but not :

--V111P 16:33, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

It was getting to be a real mess, so I tried cleaning it up. I listed all the languages down to a certain population cutoff. I chose 4 million for two reasons: That included Balinese, which is important for the simple reason that everyone has heard of it, and also because the number of languages almost no-one has heard of (Waray etc.) grows substantially once we go below 4 million. Then I added languages that are official in some sovereign nation, as well as Maori and Hawaiian, which are spoken in predominantly English-speaking countries. (This is, after all, English Wikipedia.) And of course Hawaiian is one of the most famous AN languages regardless of its small numbers, and that makes it important IMHO. That said, I think Tongan and Tetum should certainly be included as the languages of sovereign nations.

This was just my attempt to bring some sense to what had been a jumble of languages that wasn't being managed responsibly. Maybe someone else has a better approach? kwami 19:22, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Maybe we could split the category. The first would be either the top 10 Austronesian languages or a list of all Austronesian lanuguages with over 1 million speakers (one million is a nice round number and is a benchmark for "major language" status in the Philippines). The other would be the most notable language(s) of each country, state, region, etc. This way, we could include minor Austronesian languages which are the most spoken in countries that have a relatively smaller population than (Tongan & Samoan, for example) and languages which are indigenous to an area but are outnumbered by the colonizing language (i.e., Hawaiian & Maori). --Chris S. 02:18, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I think splitting the list is a good idea. However, a long list doesn't do us much good: If someone wants to know what "Austronesian" is, telling them it's "Waray" doesn't help. And the list gets quite long after 4M, with few or no languages that are likely to mean anything to most people. (The people they do mean something to will likely already be familiar with Austronesian, and so won't need the list at all.)

Maybe 'official languages' would work for the second list. That would include most of the smaller languages most people have heard of, including all of your suggestions except Paiwan. kwami 06:02, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps 10 million for the first list, then? But then again, how many Austronesian languages with over 1 million speakers could there be? I am counting 28, judging from list of languages by native speakers. But then there's, I think, 11 for 10M+ Either way, it doesn't matter to me much. As for the second list, I intend for languages like Paiwan to be there. So it's not necessarily official, but more like indigenous? I think it's important to mention the Formosan languages in such a list. Just my 2 cents... --Chris S. 04:17, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

10M would work. (There's just seven of them, BTW.) I went down to 4M to include Balinese, but 10M might be better. As for Paiwan, I think we need to ask what purpose this list is supposed to serve. The Formosan languages are notable for cladistics and historical ling, and that's quite evident from their dominant position in the classification section. But they'd just be clutter in a list of languages, because practically no one's heard of them. People should be able to recognize most of the names in such a list, or it's meaningless to them. And why Paiwan and not Amis? Here we're getting back to adding languages just because we like them, which turns into a mess because it encourages everyone to do the same. kwami 12:00, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

For me, it's not a matter of adding meaningless info, but relevant info. Anyway, I see that you did the list already. I had something different in mind - sorted by country rather than language so as to list all the places where Austronesian languages are spoken. An excerpt is below, let me know what you think.
Countries and regions that are home to Austronesian languages (note: in this part, we'd list maybe the top three).
  • Indonesia: Javanese, Sundanese, Indonesian (official)
  • Philippines: Tagalog (official), Cebuano, Ilokano
  • Malaysia: Malay (official), etc.
  • Madagascar: Malagasy (official)
  • Taiwan: Paiwan, Tsou, Ami, (I don't know how many speakers each language has...)
You get the idea. Of course, this list could get pretty big too. --Chris S. 06:54, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
That would be fine. Having context gives unknown names some meaning, and we'd also be listing by relative importance. Maori is important in NZ despite its numbers being nowhere near those of Javanese. But I don't think we should list 3 langs for each country unless they're all significant there. (Do we want to list Tokelau for NZ? Carolinian for the US?) kwami 19:16, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
Hmm. To handle that, I would probably do:
But then that raises an issue. We'd probably have to do the same for France.
--Chris S. 22:29, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

That's not necessarily a bad way to go. Don't forget Paici for New Cal! kwami 10:29, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I have made a rough draft at Austronesian languages/country list. So, please take a look, make changes so that it's suitable for framing the article. Thanks. --Chris S. 22:42, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
The FSM languages are official, as I believe are two others (though I'm not sure they have the same status). Should have and many others for New Caledonia too, and in any case the second AN language of that country is Javanese. Moken is also spoken in Thailand. The most important language in PNG after Motu is Tolai/Kuanua. It appears that Pukapukan is officially Cook Islands Maori and therefore also official. (That's a little weird.) And we should link to the language articles. kwami 01:30, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi - I can't really tell from the comments above what the consensus was for those lists. Maybe there isn't one yet. But the first list is currently titled as "languages with native speakers". I was going to change this, but I'm not sure what to change it to. If there's still no consensus, maybe in the meantime it could be left at something like "major languages", which, although it isn't a very helpful term, it's not misleading as "languages with native speakers". Just a thought!--Sheena V 04:45, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] homeland

[I'm offering this as a discussion topic. However, I just looked at the dates on these comments. The most recent one was months ago. If no one answers in a few days, I'll edit the article.]

I'm wondering about the article's mention of China as the homeland of Austronesian, as opposed to Taiwan. I'm not sure whether the relevant sentence as it stands is intended to make that assertion, but if it is, then I would have some questions about that.

Certainly the Formosan tribes migrated from somewhere on what is now the mainland, perhaps around 8,000 years ago. Pure common sense as well as genetic and archaeological evidence would suggest this (unless you assume that "the son of Lucy" was actually from Taichung). Then around 6,000 years ago they began migrating from Taiwan to other Austronesian areas (with perhaps a long pause or two in the process). However -- well, perhaps Sagart would have something to say here, but in general the linguistic connection between the mainland and Taiwan is debatable. That is, whatever languages may be "Proto-Formosan" (although that term is debatable), are not recoverable by the comparative method. [The passage states that "none of the relevant mainland languages have survived."] I think the genetic and archaeological evidence is not as relevant as the linguistic evidence, in this particular context.

I could dredge up many quotes of eminent scholars stating that Taiwan is the homeland of the Austronesian langauges, including one or two that would mention China with a lesser degree of assurance:

Implied in these discussions of subgrouping is a broad consensus that the homeland of the Austronesians was in Taiwan. This homeland area may have also included the P'eng-hu (Pescadores) islands between Taiwan and China and possibly even sites on the coast of mainland China, especially if one were to view the early Austronesians as a population of related dialect communities living in scattered coastal settlements.

Fox, James J. (2004). Current Developments in Comparative Austronesian Studies. Paper prepared for Symposium Austronesia Pascasarjana Linguististik dan Kajian Budaya. Universitas Udayana, Bali 19-20 August.

I'm saying that I think the homeland of Austronesian should be given as Taiwan.

Ling.Nut 04:04, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I completely agree. I think the mainland China connection was given because of the archaeological evidence you mention, but I agree (and have argued elsewhere on WP, see Austronesia where I'm about to make a similar change) that Taiwan is very widely accepted as the homeland of the Austronesian languages (and that somewhere in mainland China might be the homeland for something pre-Austronesian, Proto-Formosan, whatever). Dougg 07:46, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Stephen Oppenheimer has written a book "Eden in the East" (ISBN 0753806797) in which he proposes that the original Austronesian homeland was the Ice Age Sundaland continental shelf. The main reasons he suggests that the homeland can't be either Taiwan or China (both of which incidentally would have formed part of the extended east Asian landmass during the Ice Age) - a) There are no Malayo-Polynesian languages hailing from Taiwan. If there is no evidence for Malayo-Polynesian in Taiwan, there is no reason why the deep diversity of the Formosan languages cannot be a result of their island isolation after the Ice Age; b) no prima facie evidence for a direct mainland Chinese origin for Austronesian. Unlike Chinese languages, Austronesian languages are neither tonal nor monosyllabic. Even if one takes issue with the above, ask yourself: "Why would people migrate at the end of an Ice Age?" Yes, you've got it! The loss of their original homeland due to flooding/sea level rise! Sunil 131.111.36.48 17:09, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] embedded links, harvard cites, etc.

This article seems light on citations & links, perhaps by design. Is this a deliberate choice? For example, I would love to see a citation on this statement:

"However, the only one of these proposals that conforms to the comparative method is the 'Austro-Tai' hypothesis, which links Austronesian to the Tai-Kadai languages."

I'm posting this here for discussion rather than putting a "needs citation" tag anywhere on the article.

I'm also going to add a cite/source for the direct quote of Blench. Hope that's OK.

Ling.Nut 04:19, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Formosan classification I: Source for info?

I'm looking for the source for Formosan classification I. I've never heard of Kulunic... but of course that doesn't mean it hasn't been suggested. Anyone know a source for this classification? It has ten primary branches, and looks somewhat similar to (Blust 1999), but not the same... certainly not P.J. K. Li... a little help, anyone?

Ling.Nut 03:05, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Suggest add Formosan Classification III (Blust 1999)

Suggestin for Formosan classification III:

Blust, R. (1999) Subgrouping, circularity and extinction: some issues in Austronesian comparative linguistics. In E. Zeitoun & P.J.K Li (Eds.), Selected papers from the Eighth International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics (31-94). Taipei: Academia Sinica.

  • Atayalic
    • Atayal
    • Seediq
  • East Formosan
    • Northern
      • Basai-Trobiawan
      • Kavalan
    • Central (Amis)
    • Southwest (Siraya)
  • Puyuma
  • Paiwan
  • Rukai
  • Tsouic
    • Tsou
    • Saaroa
    • Kanakanabu
  • Bunun
  • Western Plains
    • Central Western Plains
      • Taokas-Babuza
      • Papora-Hoanya
    • Thao
  • Northwest Formosan
    • Saisiyat
    • Kulon-Pazeh
  • Malayo Polynesian

Ling.Nut 05:09, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Formosan classifications

I looked at the history, and the Formosan classifications were originally posted by Kwamikagami, who is on vacation. No one has offered a source for Formosan (I), but I am in the process of researching this further.

However, I suggest replacing Formosan (I) with (Blust 1999), and adding (Li 2003) as a new Formosan (II). This would retain the current Formosan (II) as Formosan (III).

Moreover, the current Formosan (II) is as unreferenced as Formosan (I). I really feel that for a language family as important as Austronesian, all such info needs to be verifiable.

I sincerely hope the wording of this post doesn't sound too negative. I also don't want to be reckless. I am waiting for some input/help. But again, after a week or so, I will just do it...

Ling.Nut 17:24, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] References and Bibliography?

OK, perhaps I'm showing my ignorance. But is there a reason why there is a section for references and a section for bibliography? Are we saying that "references" are specifically cited in the text, but Bibliography means "something in here is somewhere in one of these"? Is this a deliberate style decision?

I'm adding everything to the (lengthier) Bibliography. If the answer to both questions above is definitely "yes," then I'll move it all to the References.

Thank you for your help Ling.Nut 00:29, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I looked into Wikipedia style guides on this topic & decided to change things. The recommended organization is References above Further Reading [see Further Reading/External Links.
I know that removing/changing section headings is not recommended, but how many articles link to the References section? Common sense suggests this is a safe move.
If we ever decide that any books/articles in the References section were not used as sources for the article, then we should move them to Further Reading.

Thanks Ling.Nut 02:14, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ref tags (footnotes) , or harvard citations/refs

I have used many Harvard citations/references in the text. I vastly prefer this style over footnotes, but perhaps I am biased. I prefer, while I am reading the text, to know who said what. If I want details, I can click the link and see the details. If I don't want details, at least I know who the source is. With the footnote-style, in order to know who is saying what, you always have to stick "according to Blust" into the text, whereas with the academic style, that is an option rather than a necessity. I think the footnotes look ugly at the end of the section, particularly when it references a book rather than a website (just my opinion; please do not misinterpret this as a mini-rant).

I don't know how many people have any opinions one way or the other.

Ling.Nut 16:41, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Structure section

This section qulaifies as a stub. However, it's harder to write this than a homeland section. Sandboxes aren't allowed, but pasting random snippets on the page would kinda uglify it.

So here are snippets, as a starter. If anyone wants to chip in, or argue, or say I should put them on the article page, or whatever... then all such comments are welcome:

Himmelmann (in The Austronesian languages of Asia and Madagascar) divides the Austronesian languages into two extremely broad groups: "symmetrical voice languages and preposed possessor languages." ("Philippine-type voice alternations" aka "focus")

Himmelmann: "There are only very few features which are sufficiently general and widespread to be considered typological characteristics of the group as a whole, including reduplication, the distinction between inclusive and exclusive pronouns and morphological causatives."

Ling.Nut 19:35, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] link to Austronesian people

I like the idea of having an article on Austronesian people, and linking to it from this page. However, the page as it currently stands is really new, seems to have errors, and is basically a stub. I hope that page can be put into reasonably decent shape before linking to it. I look forward to helping with that page whenever I have time. Thanks --Ling.Nut 13:31, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I was just actually thinking of doing that today(create a separate page about the austronesian people). I'm gonna go ahead and add a couple of tags in the article and a disambiguation page. A few link repairs might be in order as well.--66.126.66.183 03:50, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
A dab page for only two articles? Isn't that overkill? Just have the two pages link to each other... when the Austronesian people page is in semi-decent shape. I'm not gonna tag the dab page for deletion right out of hand ( I would prefer for you to do it, since you made it), but I really do not see the need for one...--Ling.Nut 12:06, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
On second thought, I'm changing the dab page to a redirect page, which would be quite useful. See above coments. --Ling.Nut 13:22, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
OK the redir page points to the dab page. I'm leaving everything alone, although I think this is overkill for two articles. --Ling.Nut 13:37, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
Well, the word Austronesian is still used by a number of articles and usually refers to both the austronesian language and the people. It would be a pain to hunt everything down by myself so the disambig page should help. I also added a tag in that page encouraging people to change the link directly to the appropriate subject. I also added a third article referring to the Austronesian homeland.--Chicbicyclist 23:15, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
I found 119 links. Good call. I'll start fixing them now. --Ling.Nut 23:22, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
115 links fixed; all except some protected pages... --Ling.Nut 00:15, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] map in infobox

I've done extensive searches, I've emailed the Library of Congress, etc etc, but no one has a good public domain or GFDL map of the Austonesian languages.

(IIRC, the Diamond article has the nicest-looking map I've seen. But of course it's copyrighted.)

The map currently in the infobox looks on the article page looks pleasant, but the Austronesian languages are a little pink blotch near the lower right corner. Something that zoomed in more would be infinitely preferable.--Ling.Nut 03:41, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Austronesian 'People'

Is there any particular reason to italicize the word people in this phrase, in the Homeland section? FilipeS 17:59, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi Filipe, I think I was trying to increase the salience of the gap between what we know about the history of the people versus what we know about the history of the language. Looking back, I think I intended to put both of those two words in italics. It does look a bit odd if one of the two words is stressed and the other isn't -- as if I intended to put the first word ("people") in scare quotes, perhaps to suggest that there's no such thing as an Austronesian people. Of course nothing could be further from the truth.
So I'm gonna put the second word in italics now too, but if you wanna remove the italics altogether, then go ahead. They both should be treated the same way; either both should have italics, or both should not. Thanks for pointing this out. --Ling.Nut 21:33, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Austronesian has several primary branches, all but one of which are found exclusively on Taiwan"

Please post archive photos of these people, where available (not artist conceptions); "...ranging from Madagascar to Easter Island. Hawaiian, Rapanui, and Malagasy (spoken on Madagascar) are the geographic outliers of the Austronesian family..." -along with photos of other island people in the described regions. I request this because someone might be mislead into believing these people are Taiwanese when they clearly are not. It is also import because many of these indigenous people are disappearing and the truth should be preserved above ethnocentric anthropological accounts. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.171.47.76 (talk • contribs) 2006-11-03.

  • Mmmm. Well anything is an option, but it would seem unusual to me to put photos of people on an article about a language family. It might be better to add them to the articles of individual groups, where needed.
  • I'll look at the wording again soon and see if it needs to be tweaked a bit to show clearly that the extra-Formosan languages include a very large number of speakers. There's no poulation figures at all. Anybody got a copy of Tryon 1995.. or another likely source...?

--Ling.Nut 01:02, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cross-linguistic Comparison Chart

I think that the column of Javanese has to include Old Javanese words or synonims as well which do reflect PAN words. Meursault2004 08:45, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tagalog speaker numbers

Thank you, Christopher Sundita for providing the http://www.census.gov.ph/data/sectordata/sr05153tx.html source for estimates of numbers of Tagalog speakers.

However, if you read the figures provided there closely, you will find that only "Four in every five Filipinos five years old and over had attended at least elementary

Based on the 2000 Census of Population and Housing (Census 2000), of the estimated 66.7 million Philippine household population aged five years and over, 89.06 percent (59.4 million) had attended at least elementary. The average annual growth rate of this segment of population during the 1995 to 2000 period was 2.89 percent."

and that among that approximately 90% of the population

"Nine out of ten can speak Tagalog

Almost all of the household population who were able to attend school can speak Tagalog (96.4 percent). Females (96.49 percent) had a little advantage over the males (96.37 percent).

As expected, almost all of the residents in NCR (99.08 percent), Southern Tagalog (98.71 percent), and Central Luzon (98.57 percent) can speak Tagalog while the lowest was in ARMM (74.55 percent) and Western Mindanao (77.76 percent)."

So if you look at the tables, that is why they they arrive at the figure of 0.8906 x 0.964 = 0.8585384 ie in 2000 they estimated that only 85.86% of the Filipinopeople could speak Tagalog. That is why they have rounded this up to "Nine out of ten can speak Tagalog", but it would be more accurate to say ""seventeen out of twenty can speak Tagalog"

Since that time, teaching in Tagalog as a first medium has reduced, not increased in the non-tagalog areas!

However, even in 2000 your source says:"Three out of ten persons who ever attended school were Tagalog

By ethnicity, nine in ten of the Kapampangans, Pangasinan/Panggalato, Ilokanos, Cebuanos, Tagalog, and Bikolanos had attended at least elementary. On the other hand, only 76.9 percent of the Aggays, 83.5 percent of the Abellings, and 85.6 percent of the Badjaos/Sama Dilauts attended at least elementary.

Among those who ever attended school, 28.5 percent were Tagalog, 13.1 percent, Cebuano; 9.5 percent, Ilocano; 7.8 percent, Hiligaynon/Ilongo; 7.7 percent, Bisaya/Binisaya,;and 6.1 percent, Bikol/Bicol.

Almost all who had attended school were literate"

Now I would grant you that almost all Ilocano speakers have good Tagalog but that is certainly not true of the other groups. I am married into a Negrenses family.

I have, therefore, changed the range to 80-85% of the census population or 68 - 73 million which I have approximated to 70 million even though, I still think that less than 80% of the population of the Philippines could adequately defend themselves on a criminal charge in either English or Tagalog without an interpreter from their native language...

Now when we consider that the Philippines also has one of the highest proportions of infants on the planet and that few children (even growing up with Tagalog speaking parents) under the age of two speak passable Tagalog, you will quickly see that even 70 million is still an overestimate. Gaimhreadhan 23:28, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

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