Darwin-L Message Log 3:100 (November 1993)

Academic Discussion on the History and Theory of the Historical Sciences

This is one message from the Archives of Darwin-L (1993–1997), a professional discussion group on the history and theory of the historical sciences.

Note: Additional publications on evolution and the historical sciences by the Darwin-L list owner are available on SSRN.

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<3:100>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu  Sun Nov 28 21:07:18 1993

Date: Sun, 28 Nov 1993 22:15:15 -0400 (EDT)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: Re: Austronesian affinities
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro

I'm not a linguist and so can't really answer Gary Heathcote's question about
Austronesian language history, but I did come across this paper at one point,
and noted it down because it made some specific comparisons between language
history and biogeography:

  Terrell, John.  1981.  Linguistics and the peopling of the Pacific islands.
  Journal of the Polynesian Society, 90:225-258.

The paper has no abstract or I would type it in, but the subheading reads
"Challenging an established idea about the languages of Oceania shows the
value of biogeographical thinking for the study of island prehistory."  I'd
be interested to know from any of our linguists whether this paper was in
any way influential, or whether there are any other papers in historical
linguistics that make explicit comparisons to historical biogeography.

Bob O'Hara, Darwin-L list owner

Robert J. O'Hara (darwin@iris.uncg.edu)
Center for Critical Inquiry and Department of Biology
100 Foust Building, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Greensboro, North Carolina 27412 U.S.A.

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