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Article published In: Journal of Historical Linguistics
Vol. 4:1 (2014) ► pp.84–132

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Reconstructing the history of languages in northwest New Britain

Inheritance and contact

 | The Australian National University
Published online: 12 May 2014
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https://doi.org/10.1075/jhl.4.1.03ros
William Thurston (1982, 1987, 1989, 1992, 1994) analyzes the history of the languages of the northwest area of New Britain. This history has included much contact among the area’s languages, all of which are Oceanic Austronesian with the exception of the Papuan language Anêm. Thurston, however, took the position that all linguistic speciation is brought about by language contact, especially by language shift. In this paper, the comparative method is applied to Thurston’s (and others’) data to reconstruct a partial history of the languages of the area, exemplifying how the comparative method may be applied in contact situations. Reanalysis of his data shows that a number of his conclusions about the histories of the area’s Austronesian languages are wrong, but validates his claim that language shift is manifested in copied specialist vocabulary, a conclusion that is important for historical contact linguistics, as such cases may provide few or no other clues that shift has occurred.
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Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

Specht, Jim
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SPECHT, JIM, ROBIN TORRENCE & KEN MULVANEY
2021. Petroglyphs and place: complex histories at four sites in New Britain. Archaeology in Oceania 56:3 ► pp. 196 ff. DOI logo
Ross, Malcolm
2017. Languages of the New Guinea Region. In The Cambridge Handbook of Areal Linguistics, ► pp. 758 ff. DOI logo

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