Indo-Pacific is a hypothetical language
macrofamily
A macrofamily (also called a superfamily or superphylum) is a term often used in historical linguistics to refer to a hypothetical higher order grouping of languages.
Metonymically, the term became associated with the practice of trying to group ...
proposed in 1971 by
Joseph Greenberg
Joseph Harold Greenberg (May 28, 1915 – May 7, 2001) was an American linguist, known mainly for his work concerning linguistic typology and the genetic classification of languages.
Life Early life and education
Joseph Greenberg was born on M ...
and now believed to be spurious. It grouped together the
Papuan languages 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 ...
and
Melanesia
Melanesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It extends from New Guinea in the west to the Fiji Islands in the east, and includes the Arafura Sea.
The region includes the four independent countries of Fiji, Vanu ...
with the
languages of the Andaman Islands (or at least
Great Andamanese
The Great Andamanese are an indigenous people of the Great Andaman archipelago in the Andaman Islands. Historically, the Great Andamanese lived throughout the archipelago, and were divided into ten major tribes. Their distinct but closely rela ...
) and, tentatively, the
languages of Tasmania, both of which are remote from New Guinea. The valid cognates Greenberg found turned out to be reflexes of the less extensive
Trans–New Guinea family. Recently the
Kusunda language
Kusunda or Kusanda (endonym ) is a language isolate spoken by a few among the Kusunda people in western and central Nepal. As of 2023, it only has a single fluent speaker, Kamala Sen-Khatri, although there are efforts underway to keep the lan ...
(and possibly other unclassificated languages), which is generally seen as a
language isolate
A language isolate is a language that has no demonstrable genetic relationship with any other languages. Basque in Europe, Ainu and Burushaski in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, Haida and Zuni in North America, Kanoê in South America, and Tiwi ...
, is also included in the Indo-Pacific proposal. Greenberg did not include "
Australian
Australian(s) may refer to:
Australia
* Australia, a country
* Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia
** European Australians
** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists
** Aboriginal Aus ...
" in his original 1971 proposal.
Proposal
The Indo-Pacific proposal, grouping the
non-Austronesian languages of New Guinea with certain languages spoken on islands to the east and west of New Guinea, was first made by Greenberg in 1971. Greenberg's supporter
Merritt Ruhlen
Merritt Ruhlen (May 10, 1944 – January 29, 2021) was an American linguist who worked on the classification of languages and what this reveals about the origin and evolution of modern humans. Amongst other linguists, Ruhlen's work was recognized ...
considers Indo-Pacific an extremely diverse and ancient family, far older than Austronesian, which reflects a migration from southeast Asia that began only 6,000 years ago; he notes that New Guinea was inhabited by modern humans at least 40,000 years ago, and possibly 10,000 to 15,000 years earlier than that.
[Ruhlen, Merritt. ''The Origin of Language: Tracing the Evolution of the Mother Tongue''. John Wiley & Sons, Inc: New York, 1994] Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza
Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza (; 25 January 1922 – 31 August 2018) was an Italian geneticist. He was a population geneticist who taught at the University of Parma, the University of Pavia and then at Stanford University.
Works
Schooling and p ...
sees Indo-Pacific as a very heterogenous family of 700 languages and suggests that it may be more than 40,000 years old.
[Cavalli-Sforza, Luigi Luca. ''Genes, Peoples, and Languages''. University of California Press: Berkeley, 2001]
Reception
Greenberg's proposal was based on rough estimation of
lexical similarity
In linguistics, lexical similarity is a measure of the degree to which the word sets of two given languages are similar. A lexical similarity of 1 (or 100%) would mean a total overlap between vocabularies, whereas 0 means there are no common words. ...
and typological similarity and has not reached a stage where it can be confirmed by the standard
comparative method
In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor and then extrapolating backwards ...
, including the reconstruction of a
protolanguage
In the tree model of historical linguistics, a proto-language is a postulated ancestral language from which a number of attested languages are believed to have descended by evolution, forming a language family. Proto-languages are usually unattest ...
. The languages of Tasmania are extinct and so poorly attested that many historical linguists regard them as unclassifiable.
Roger Blench
Roger Marsh Blench (born August 1, 1953) is a British linguist, ethnomusicologist and development anthropologist. He has an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and is based in Cambridge, England. He researches, publishes, and work ...
has dismissed the Indo-Pacific proposal as improbable, observing that while it "purported to be a purely linguistic exercise...it conveniently swept up all the languages of the crinklyhaired populations in the region that were not clearly Austronesian." He writes that despite decades of further research into
Papuan languages
The Papuan languages are the non- Austronesian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea, as well as neighbouring islands in Indonesia, Solomon Islands, and East Timor. It is a strictly geographical grouping, and does not imply ...
and prehistory, Indo-Pacific is still not accepted by specialists and that it "only exists in the eye of the believer."
George van Driem
George "Sjors" van Driem (born 1957) is a Dutch professor emeritus of linguistics at the University of Bern. He studied East Asian languages and is known for the father tongue hypothesis.
Education
* Leiden University, 1983–1987 (PhD, ''A Gra ...
(2001) responds as follows:
Since Greenberg's work, the languages of New Guinea have been intensively studied by
Stephen Wurm
Stephen Adolphe Wurm (, ; 19 August 1922 – 24 October 2001) was a Hungarian-born Australian linguist.
Early life
Wurm was born in Budapest, the second child to the German-speaking Adolphe Wurm and the Hungarian-speaking Anna Novroczky. ...
. Wurm's Trans–New Guinea languages family includes about 70 percent of the languages Greenberg included in Indo-Pacific,
though the internal classification is entirely different. Wurm states that the lexical similarities between Great Andamanese,
West Papuan (which is not part of Trans–New Guinea), and certain languages of
Timor
Timor (, , ) is an island at the southern end of Maritime Southeast Asia, in the north of the Timor Sea. The island is Indonesia–Timor-Leste border, divided between the sovereign states of Timor-Leste in the eastern part and Indonesia in the ...
"are quite striking and amount to virtual formal identity
..in a number of instances", but considers this to be due to a linguistic
substratum
Substrata, plural of substratum, may refer to:
*Earth's substrata, the geologic layering of the Earth
*''Hypokeimenon'', sometimes translated as ''substratum'', a concept in metaphysics
*Substrata (album), a 1997 ambient music album by Biosphere
* ...
rather than a direct relationship.
Pawley (2008) is the only thorough review of the proposal. He found that all branches of Indo-Pacific except Tasmanian and Andamanese include languages from Trans–New Guinea, and that this explains the more reasonable cognates that Greenberg proposed, but because these Trans–New Guinea languages are mixed in with languages from other families in those branches, cognates linking the branches do not provide support for Greenberg's proposal that all Papuan languages are related.
Subdivision
*
Tasmanian
Tasmania (; palawa kani: ''Lutruwita'') is an island state of Australia. It is located to the south of the Australian mainland, and is separated from it by the Bass Strait. The state encompasses the main island of Tasmania, the 26th ...
*
Great Andamanese
The Great Andamanese are an indigenous people of the Great Andaman archipelago in the Andaman Islands. Historically, the Great Andamanese lived throughout the archipelago, and were divided into ten major tribes. Their distinct but closely rela ...
: Southern:
Chariar,
Puchikwar,
Kede,
Kol,
Juwoi; Northern:
Beada,
Bogijiab,
Bale
Bale may refer to:
Apps
Bale Messenger, an Iranian instant messaging (IM) app owned by the National Bank of Iran
Packaging
* Cotton bale
* Hay or straw bale in farming, bound by a baler
* Paper bale, a unit of paper measurement equal t ...
,
Biada
*Nuclear
**Central
***Kapauku–Baliem
****
Kapauku (Ekari, Ekagi),
Moni,
Jabi,
Simori,
Wolani Paniai Lakes
The Paniai Lakes, originally known as the Wissel Lakes, are the three large, freshwater lakes in Central Papua, Indonesia: Paniai, Tigi, and Tage. Lakes Paniai and Tage are located in the Paniai Regency, while Lake Tigi is located in Deiyai Regen ...
family]
****Dem language, Dem [= TNG Dem]
****Uhunduni language, Uhunduni, Enggipilu language, Enggipilu [= TNG Uhunduni]
****Dani languages, Dani (Ndani) [→ Dani]
****Northern Ngalik language, Northern Ngalik,
Oeringoep language, Oeringoep,
Sawuri-Hablifuri,
Southern Ngalik,
Peseghem Dani + Isirawa (probably Kwerba languages">Kwerba)">Dani languages">Dani + Isirawa (probably
Kwerba)***Highland
****Wurm & Laycock's
Gadsup–Auyana–Awa–Tairoa +
Erima, Tsinyaji language">Tsinyaji [= TNG Kainantu + Madang">rima_language">Eri.html" ;"title="Kainantu languages">Gadsup–Auyana–Awa–Tairoa + Erima language">Erima,
Tsinyaji ****Wurm & Laycock's Goroka languages">Gende–Siane–Gahuku–Kamano–Fore [= TNG Goroka">Tsinyaji language">Tsinyaji [= TNG Kainantu + Madang****Wurm & Laycock's
Gende–Siane–Gahuku–Kamano–Fore ****Wurm & Laycock's Chimbu–Wahgi languages">Hagen–Wahgi–Jimi–Chumbu [= Chimbu–Wahgi">Goroka languages">Gende–Siane–Gahuku–Kamano–Fore [= TNG Goroka****Wurm & Laycock's
Hagen–Wahgi–Jimi–Chumbu ****Wurm & Laycock's Enga–
Huli–
Pole–Wiru language">Wiru [= Engan languages">Engan + Wiru (probably Teberan–Pawaian)">Huli language">Huli–
Pole–
Wiru [= Engan languages">Engan + Wiru (probably Teberan–Pawaian)****Karam language">Karam (Aförö) [= Madang">Pole language">Pole–Wiru language">Wiru
Engan + Wiru (probably Teberan–Pawaian)****
Karam (Aförö) [= Madang****Kutubu language">Kutubu, Fasu language">Fasu [= Kutubuan">Karam language">Karam (Aförö) [= Madang****Kutubu language">Kutubu, Fasu language">Fasu [= Kutubuan***McElhanon's Huon languages + Matap language, Matap, Jupna Valley language, Jupna Valley, Kandomin language, Kandomin, Wantoat language, Wantoat [= TNG Finisterre–Huon languages, Finisterre–Huon]
**Northern
***Murik:
Murik,
Angoram
Angoram is a town and seat of Angoram District in East Sepik Province in north-western Papua New Guinea. The area is noted for its rubber and cocoa plantations and the town is situated on the Sepik River
The Sepik () is the longest river on th ...
(Tjimundo),
Tshamberi,
Kambot Nor–Pondo + Kambot">Nor–Pondo_languages.html" ;"title=" Nor–Pondo languages">Nor–Pondo + Kambot***Tami:
Sko (Seko), Sangke language">Sangke, Arso language">Arso
Arso may refer to:
* Arso Jovanović (1907–1948), Yugoslav partisan general during World War II
* Arso, Keerom, a district in Papua, Indonesia
** Arso Airport
* Slovenian Environment Agency The Slovenian Environment Agency ( Slovenian: ''Agenci ...