Re: Dyirbal?

On Fri, 19 Nov 2004 18:54, Ph. D. wrote:
> Rodlox wrote:
> >  two questions -- where in Austronesia is/was Dyirbal
> > spoken?  &, aside from Syntactic Ergativity, what other
> > fun stuff does it and-or its language subfamily (its closer
> > relations within the broad Austroneasian Family) have?
> > *curious*
>
> I believe the Australian languages (the languages of the
> indigenous people of Australia) are not related to the
> Austronesian langauges (broadly, the languages of the
> islands in Pacific Ocean).
Australian languages and Papuan languages share a common set of beginnings,
from the people who shifted into the combined island continent c 60 - 40 000
years ago.

Austronesian languages are derived from a proto-Austronesian language spoken
in Taiwan around about 3 000 years ago.  The residents must've got restless
and shifted further south, until Austronesian is the world's most widely
scattered stone-age era language family, with speakers spread from Madagascar
to Easter Island and Hawai'i.  The only place the Australian languages met
the Austronesian languages was around Darwin/Arnhem Land, where there was a
scattered trading trips from Indonesia; the Papuan languages met the
Austronesian languages around the New Guinean coastline, and largely lost.
Inland they speak Papuan languages; on the coast, particularly the north
coast and islands, they speak Austronesian languages.

I may be wrong; I don't doubt it; but that is what I've picked up from here
and there about the Australian/Papuan/Austronesian language families.
>
> (Malagasy, spoken on the island of Madagascar off the
> southeastern coast of Africa, is also related to the
> Austronesian languages.)
>
> --Ph. D.
--
Wesley Parish
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Maku e ki, "He tangata, he tangata, he tangata."
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