Re: Polynesian family (was Re: A new Indo-European subfamily in China)

On Sun, Dec 03, 2000 at 06:16:33PM -0500, E-Ching Ng wrote:
> >How about Malay/Indonesian? They are non-tonal. Or are they regarded as a
> >different language family?
>
> I think they're classed as Austronesian.  The Polynesians were expanding
> across the Pacific at around 700AD, I think, at about the same time as
> the Vikings were on the seas, and they scattered their language family
> all the way from Hawaii to Indonesia.  Don't know why it's called
> AUSTROnesian, come to think of it ... problem set and dinner calling, no
> time to look it up.
Cool, thanx for the info :-)

> Before I go - I know that Japanese and Malay both have a question-marker
> "ka", though in Malay I think it can go anywhere in the sentence and in
> Japanese it has to be at the end.  I wonder if anyone's looked at Malay
> when trying to trace the origins of Japanese?
Interesting that you mention this. In Korean, the question marker is also
[ka], right, Yoon Ha? Or was it [kah]? If the latter, that's even closer
to Malay! Well, at least in formal Korean: e.g. [an.jON.ha.si.mi.kah] --
equiv. of "how are you doing?". Is this a coincidence, or is there some
subtle connection here?


T

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