Re: Pama-Nyungan, was Re: Indo-European family tree

On Fri, 30 Sep 2005 18:18:14 -0400, Doug Dee <AmateurLinguist@...>
wrote:

> That reminds me of a question about another language family:  RMW Dixon
> says
> that one reason to doubt that Pama-Nyungan (in Australia) is really a
> language
> family is that it is hard to see how one language (proto-Pama-Nyungan)
> could
> have replaced all the previously existing languages across a wide area
> (most
> of Australia) in the absence of empires, agriculture, or anything else
> that
> would have given the proto-Pama-Nyungans a decisive advantage over the
> preexisting languages and cultures.
>
> I'd be interested in the opinions of list members about that argument.
Could they have had a simple technological advantage (I have no idea what?
A hunting technique, a better kind of spear, or the boomerang, or
something?), or even just some kind of particularly attractive cultural
feature(s) that was felt to be superior? Over tens of thousands of years,
I would imagine even a small advantage could influence the scales such
that they tip due to sheer weight of numbers.

I think that its arriving significantly either before or after the other
language families, with such an advantage, could probably help matters
along.

Note: I have never studied the languages or prehistory of Australia in any
way.




Paul