Re: Shady Austronesian Linguistics (longish)

Chollie wrote:
>    It's true that Roman ships were not up to par, but Carthaginian ships
>might have been - remember that our Roman crew was lost off the coast of
>Carthage.  The "Periplus" or voyage of Hanno the Navigator (which can be
>read today, in Greek, translated from a lost Punic original)
        Is this the same "Periplus of the Erythrean Sea" said to date from
ca. 230 CE?
        IIRC the Romans knew pepper and clove (??), and silk, the latter
probably via the overland route (which may have been disrupted by turmoil in
Central Asia prior to/around  year 0).  The spices would have to have
come--no doubt by stages-- ultimately from the Moluccas, via
India/S.Arabia/Persian Gulf or Red Sea.  All those middle-men jacked the
price up, but low-bulk/high price cargoes were what the trade was all about.
        Some interesting comments from Coedès, "Indianized States of SE
Asia":

    "...the development of the Indian and Chinese navies and the
construction of seaworthy junks that [could carry] 600 to 700
passengers....constructed by a technique in use in the Persian Gulf....[They
may have been capable of] sailing 'close to the wind', a major innovation in
the art of navigation.....moreover, around the middle of 1st Cent. CE the
Greek pilot Hippalos discovered the periodic alternation of the monsoons,
which the Muslims [sic] knew about but had kept secret.  From
this...resulted a prodigious increase in maritime commerce between India and
the ports of the Red Sea....."

(The alternating monsoons also governed trade patterns in Indonesia)
So even though this involves the trade network only as far east as
China/Indonesia, it's clear that it could be done.   And if you can get to
the Moluccas, it's a simple matter, if you're curious/brave enough,  to
island-hop along the N. coast of New Guinea as far as the Solomons. Then a
moderate hop to the New Hebrides, then a longish open-sea voyage eastward to
Fiji, further on  to Samoa.  At this point our ship might have had to take
on a Polynesian pilot, who would surely know how to get to the Tahiti area.
Unfortunately, a shipwreck halts the expedition.  (BTW I'm not sure there
are any active volcanic islands in that area.  My atlas doesn't have a good
map of the "Ring of Fire".  But why not anyway?)
    I just spent a frustrating hour with Amazon, BN, and Borders trying to
find grammars of PN languages.  Finally turned up a cheap and available
intro Maori, which will have to do for now.  Perhaps some of our European
friends could refer me to a Tahitian-French source?  I can't believe the old
British "Teach Yourself...." series doesn't seem to have Tongan, Fijian or
Samoan. Is there a UK equivalent of Amazon?  I do have good Fijian and
Samoan dictionaries, so all is not lost.
    It has occurred to me that Poly-Latin might come to be written with the
Greek alphabet; mysterious religious texts with Aramaic (on the assumption
that Greek, Jewish or other Levantine galley slaves would more likely be
literate/educated than the run of the mill Roman).