Re: Saalangal stuff

Barry Garcia wrote:


>It would be interesting to see grammatical sketches of the other languages
>of Indonesia, and compare those with grammatical sketches of those in the
>Philippines to see which languages are closer to others (hmm maybe it's
>been done).
Yes it would be interesting, but no, I don't think it's been done in any
organized way, certainly not all in one place.  Most of the descriptions are
in Dutch, some in German and English, of varying dates and theoretical
approaches (if any).   The Min. of Education has published a number of
little volumes in Indonesian, "Struktur Bahasa XX", but aside from their
wordlists they're pathetic-- even tho written by native speakers, it seems
there was a template, so everything gets forced into a sort-of 1940
Structuralist framework, poorly understood.  And not proofread either.  (end
rant)

>Isn't Bahasa Indonesia a former creole?>
IMO it's, at best, a "good possibility".  Perhaps more likely, a Koine. I've
been out of the loop for a while, but my feeling is that the idea hasn't
really been seriously investigated.
>
>My grandfather's people (Aklanons) trace their history in a sort of
>mytho-historical account of ten Datus arriving from Borneo to set up the
>province of Aklan in 1213. In fact, my grandfather's home village was
>supposedly the second capital of the "Minuro it Akean". His village was
>settled in 1437.
But if I'm not mistaken, Aklanon is very clearly a member of the Bisayan
family, which seems always to have been in the Central PI...and the
time-depth is certainly greater than 800 years.  But the tradition doesn't
sound unreasonable. It could be that a bunch of people came up from Borneo
and imposed themselves (military or more likely as traders)  on a group that
was speaking "Early Aklanon".  That seems to have happened fairly frequently
in the PI/Indo world.
>
>I'm wondering how close Aklanon, Kinaray-a, and Ilonggo are to languages
>in Borneo.
(Are Kinaray-a and Ilonggo also Bisayan languages? I forget)  The
classification of PI languages has been in dispute for a long time and I
suspect still is.  "Philippine type" languages-- characterized by verbal
morphology, sometimes tense distinctions or realis/irrealis, and fairly
obvious focus systems-- are found from Taiwan south thru the PI into
northern Borneo and the northern arm of Sulawesi (also in the tip of the
eastern arm and Banggai Isl.), and IIRC Chamorro of Guam. At the southern
end, there are very sharp dividing lines between Philippine vs. other types,
suggesting that Borneo and Sulawesi are relatively recent interlopers.

Reply