Donald Laycock (1936–1988) was an Australian linguist and anthropologist. He is best remembered for his work on the languages of

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

Biography

He was a graduate of University of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia and later worked as a researcher at the

University of Adelaide The University of Adelaide is a public university, public research university based in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third-oldest university in Australia. Its main campus in the Adelaide city centre includes many Sa ...

Anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, society, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behav ...

. He undertook his Ph.D. at the

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public university, public research university and member of the Group of Eight (Australian universities), Group of Eight, located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton, A ...

in linguistics and became one among the leading authorities on the languages of Papua New Guinea.Dutton, T., Ross, M. and Tryon, D. (eds.). 1992. ''The Language Game: Papers in memory of Donald C. Laycock''. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. He performed several pioneering surveys of the languages of the Sepik region of

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; , fossilized , also known as Papua or historically ) is the List of islands by area, world's second-largest island, with an area of . Located in Melanesia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is ...

. The first of these, his Ph.D. research under the supervision of Stephen Wurm, was published as ''The Ndu languages'' (1965), and established the existence of this closely related group of languages. In subsequent surveys, Laycock found the

Ndu languages The Ndu languages are the best known family of the Sepik languages of East Sepik Province in northern Papua New Guinea. ''Ndu'' is the word for 'man' in the languages that make up this group. The languages were first identified as a related famil ...

were part of a larger language family extending through the middle and upper Sepik valley (the "Sepik subphylum"), and in 1973 he proposed that these languages formed part of a Sepik–Ramu phylum. This remained the general consensus in the linguistic world for over 30 years. While more recent work by William A. Foley and Malcolm Ross has cast doubt on a link between the Ramu – Lower Sepik languages and the

Sepik languages The Sepik or Sepik River languages are a language family, family of some 50 Papuan languages spoken in the Sepik River, Sepik river basin of northern Papua New Guinea, proposed by Donald Laycock in 1965 in a somewhat more limited form than prese ...

, the "Sepik subphylum" seems established as a genuine group. Laycock also first identified the Torricelli (1968) and Piawi groups of languages. He published numerous papers in linguistics and anthropology. He was described by his fellow authors of ''Skeptical'' ( David Vernon, Colin Groves and Simon Brown) as a 20th-century 'Renaissance Man' as his interests were wide-ranging from Melanesian languages, to channelling, Tarot cards and bawdy songs. He was a Fellow of the

Australian Academy of the Humanities The Australian Academy of the Humanities was established by Royal Charter in 1969 to advance scholarship and public interest in the humanities in Australia. It operates as an independent not-for-profit organisation partly funded by the Australi ...

(FAHA), Vice President of the Australian Linguistic Society (ALS) and a member of Mensa. A keen member of the

Australian Skeptics Australian Skeptics is a loose confederation of like-minded organisations across Australia that began in 1980. Australian Skeptics investigate paranormal and pseudoscientific claims using science, scientific methodologies. This page covers all A ...

he entertained many people at Skeptic's conventions with his demonstrations of glossolalia and going into trances. After his death, Laycock's meticulous work on the Enochian 'language' (which was allegedly channelled to an associate of the Elizabethan mystic

John Dee John Dee (13 July 1527 – 1608 or 1609) was an English mathematician, astronomer, teacher, astrologer, occultist, and alchemist. He was the court astronomer for, and advisor to, Elizabeth I, and spent much of his time on alchemy, divination, ...

) was turned by a colleague into one of the very few classics of skeptical linguistics. He died, after a short illness, in

Canberra Canberra ( ; ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the Federation of Australia, federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's list of cities in Australia, largest in ...

, on 27 December 1988.

Selected bibliography

* ''The Ndu language family (Sepik District, New Guinea)''. Pacific Linguistics C-1. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, 1965. * "Languages of the Lumi subdistrict (West Sepik district), New Guinea." ''Oceanic Linguistics'' 7: 36–66. 1968. * ''Sepik languages - checklist and preliminary classification''. Pacific Linguistics B-25. Canberra, 1973. * (with John Z'graggen) "The Sepik–Ramu phylum." In: Stephen A. Wurm, ed. ''Papuan languages and the New Guinea linguistic scene: New Guinea area languages and language study 1''. Pacific Linguistics C-38. 731–763. Canberra, 1975. * ''The Complete Enochian Dictionary: A Dictionary of the Angelic Language as Revealed to Dr. John Dee and Edward Kelley'', London: Askin Publishers. 1978. * ''The Best Bawdry'', Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1982. * ''The World's Best Dirty Songs'', Angus & Robertson, North Ryde, 1987, . * (with Alice Buffet) ''Speak Norfuk Today'', Norfolk Island, 1988. * ''Skeptical'' Eds. Don Laycock, David Vernon, Colin Groves, Simon Brown, Canberra Skeptics, 1989, . * ''A Dictionary of Buin, a language of Bougainville'', ed. Masayuki Onishi (Pacific Linguistics 537, 2003). . (published posthumously)

References

* ''The Skeptic'', Vol 19, No 1, p7 * ''The Second Coming'', Barry Williams, Australian Skeptics, Sydney, 1990 * ''Aspects of meaning in fieldwork'', in Tom Dutton, Malcolm Ross and Darrell Tryon (eds)
The language game: Papers in memory of Don C. Laycock
Pacific Linguistics, C 110, 22 pp., Canberra: ANU, 1993 {{DEFAULTSORT:Laycock, Donald Australian lexicographers Linguists of Papuan languages 1936 births 1988 deaths Fellows of the Australian Academy of the Humanities Australian National University alumni Place of birth missing Mensans Historical linguists Linguists of Sepik languages Linguists of Torricelli languages Linguists of South Bougainville languages Linguists of Norfuk 20th-century Australian anthropologists 20th-century Australian linguists 20th-century lexicographers People from Canberra University of Newcastle (Australia) alumni

Biography

See also

Selected bibliography

References