marvellously mapped

books

Languages of the Pacific marvellously mapped

Language Atlas of the Pacific Area, Part II: Japan Area, Taiwan (Formosa), Philippines. Mainland and Insular South-east Asia. Edited by S.

A. Wurm and S. Hattori. Published by the Australian Academy of the Humanities in collaboration with the Japan Academy. Canberra, 1983, as Prolific Linguistics, Series C, No. 67. ISBN 0 85883 239 9 and ISBN 0 85883 290 9. Price

Saioo.

This set of 23 maps, each with appropriate text, neatly fills the box that accompanied, and was half-filled by, the 24 maps plus text which constituted Part I:

New Guinea Area, Oceania, Australia (published 1981, re viewed in PIM Dec. ’B3 pp 39- 42) of a highly ambitious pro ject which has succeeded beyond all reasonable expecta tion. Once again, as in Part/, a wide range of linguistic exper tise has been drawn upon, and the associating of languages with specific areas on the maps is backed up by a wealth of textual information. The pub lishers again acknowledge the particular assistance of the de partments of Linguistics and of Human Geography in the Re search School of Pacific Studies at the Australian National Uni versity.

The general structure of the presentation is as follows: Lan guage Groups in the Greater Pacific Area (map 25); Japan Area (maps 26-29); Austrone sian languages in Taiwan (For mosa) (map 30); Philippines (maps 31-34); Mainland South east Asia, Peninsular Malaysia and Andaman and Nicobar Is lands (maps 35-37); Insular South-east Asia (maps 38-45); Pidgin Languages, Trade Lan guages and Lingue Franche in the Philippines, and Mainland and Insular South-east Asia (map 46); and Distribution of Varieties of Chinese in the Greater Pacific Area (map 47).

Each of these sections has, in

addition to the map(s), some or all (depending on what is appropriate in a given case) of the following: a general intro duction, a historically oriented classification of the languages, information on dialect variation, a language index, and biblio graphic details for the various sources of information that have been used.

The general map shows the distribution of the higher-order language groups of the region.

These are historically related languages at or around the “language family” level i.e., comparable to the Indo-Euro pean languages such as, in the Pacific area, Austronesian,

Papua New Guinea’s 700 languages make it one of the most ligusitically complex areas in the world. - Photo of a PNG Highlands sing-sing by Micheal Maclntyre in The New Pacific.

Papuan, Austroasiatic, and Sino-Tibetan languages.

This map effectively demon trates three broad features which deserve to be more wide ly known than they are.

First, it makes very apparent the vast area over which the 800 or so Austronesian lan guages are distributed from Easter Island in the east to Malagasy in the west, and from Hawaii and Taiwan in the north to New Guinea and New Zea land in the south; a distribution which includes all of Polynesia and Micronesia, most of Island Melanesia, parts of New Guinea (east and west), the Philippines, insular South-east Asia, parts of mainland South-east Asia, and Malagasy. Secondly, it illus trates that the areas of greatest linguistic diversity in the region are the island of New Guinea (at least seven higher-order groups represented) and main land South-east Asia (at least five higher-order groups repre sented). Thirdly, it shows clear ly that the indigenous lan guages of Australia constitute a group that has no representa tion elsewhere.

The Japan area is mapped primarily in terms of the sub classification and distribution of dialects. This is done in con siderable cartographic and tex tual detail for the main islands of Japan and for the Ryuku Islands, and in even finer detail (at hamlet level) within the Ryuku archipelago for Okinawa

and several neighboring islets.

The remaining map for this area deals with the now virtual ly extinct dialects of the Ainu language as and where they were spoken on Hokkaido and on Sakhalin Island (USSR) in the late 1950 s by informants who are now deceased.

The Austronesian languages of Taiwan are indigenous to the island. They are of considerable interest to historically oriented comparativists because in va rious sub-grouping statements proposed for the Austronesian group these Taiwanese lan guages emerge as constituting one (or, in one version, three) of the highest-order sub-groups within Austronesian. They are also of interest because Taiwan is on the short list of possible “Austronesian homelands.”

The effective mapping that is accorded them in the atlas is therefore particularly welcome.

The many islands and large population of the Philippines contain over 100 Austronesian languages and language-com plexes. In the latter, which are sometimes termed dialect chains, a set of dialects is linked by mutual intelligibility be tween, e.g., dialects A and B, and B and C, but not between A and C, so that not all speakers of a given language complex can understand each other. Of the 10 languages and language-complexes which have the greatest numbers of speakers, four Tagalog and

Cebuano (each with over 10 million speakers), and Ilocana and Hiligaynon (each with over four million speakers be tween them account for about 70 per cent of the total popula tion. The classification and distribution of all the Philippine languages are comprehensively and effectively presented, with the compilers being thoroughly aware of the problems of map ping in a situation where lan guage boundaries on the ground are often not clear-cut and where changes in area boundaries of minor languages as a result of pressure from major ones are in progress.

Mainland South-east Asia (Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Kampuchea, and parts of east ern and southern Burma) is “one of the linguistically most complex parts of the world,” containing, as it does, lan guages from at least five higher order linguistic groups Au stroasiatic, Sino-Tibetan, Au stronesian, Miao-Yao and Thai- Kadai. Of these the first two, as far as their representation in this region is concerned, are in ternally the most complex in terms of sub-grouping. The dif ficulties of effective mapping in this context are compounded by the fact that “languages belonging to several different phyla (higher-order groups) are interspersed in intricate patterns in many regions, each language often occupying only a very small area.” Nevertheless, the

compilers of this section have produced a tightly informative coverage both textually and cartographically. This section also includes peninsular Malaysia a relatively com plex region and the Anda man and Nicobar Islands. The Austronesian languages co vered in this mainland region are found in parts of Kam puchea, southern Vietnam, peninsular Malaysia, and the Merui Archipelago (off the south Burmese coast).

As far as the history of the linguistic complexity in main land South-east Asia is con cerned, the atlas suggests that: “An extremely tentative and certainly over-simplified his torical scenario for the spread and diversification of languages in this area might hypothesise that the AA (Austroasiatic) lan guages were originally spoken in mainland South-east Asia, and that subsequent migrations and/or conquests resulted in the introduction of other lan guages. ” The text also empha sises that “speaking a language in South-east Asia does not necessarily imply genetic des cent from speakers of that lan guage; change of ethnic and language identity has been very common, as is bilingualism.”

The section on insular South east Asia maps the languages of Eastern Malaysia (in North Bor neo) and most of Indonesia (excluding Irian Jaya, which was covered in Part I of the atlas). Most of the languages in this region arc Austronesian, but there are some Papuan languages on Timor, Alnor, Pantar, North Halmahera, and the small portion of western Irian Jaya mapped in this sec tion. The most complex areas in the region are in North and South Borneo, which, there fore, are mapped separately.

The mapping of pidgin and creole languages and of lingue franche (languages, usually in simplified forms, used across language boundaries in a given region) illustrates the distribu tion of three broad types: pid gins and creoles that are “based” (a somewhat question able term) on non-indigenous languages as might be ex pected, in view of the patterns of former European colonial presences, a Portuguese-based creole, a Spanish-based creole, and a pidgin French are

One representation of the massive geographical spread of the Austronesian language family.

Madagascar had to be tugged across the Indian Ocean to fit it in the map. But it certainly belongs in it from a linguistic viewpoint. - Map from Out of Asia: Peopling the Americas and the Pacific, editid by Robert Kirk and Enoke Szathmary, published by The Journal of Pacific History, Canberra, and soon to be reviewed in PIM.

Languages

documented; pidgins and creoles “based” on indigenous languages the most notable of these is Bazaar Malay; and non-pidginised indigenous ling ue tranche.

The section of the atlas covering the distribution of 10 varieties of Chinese in the Paci fic region is a testimony to the übiquity of the Chinese com mercial and social presence, a presence which often has con siderable time-depth. The map ping shows not only where some variety of Chinese is spoken, but also, when several varieties are present in a given location, their relative degrees of importance in that location e.g., Broome, Auckland and Wellington have Standard Can tonese exclusively; Sydney and

Brisbane have Standard Can tonese predominantly, but also have Hokkien and Szeyup Cantonese (and some Man darin in Sydney only); and Melbourne has Szeyup Can tonese predominantly, but also has Standard Cantonese and Hokkien.

The general editors, the sec tion editors, and the many contributing linguists whose combined talents have pro duced this truly magnificent atlas deserve our congratula tions and thanks. As a result of their efforts the Pacfic region, which contains nearly half the languages of the world, has for the first time been definitively mapped in linguistic terms. This does not mean, however, that supplements will be unneces sary, since it is normal for languages and their distribu tions to change in the course of

time.

David Walsh.