New Guinea: Keystone of Oceanic linguistics

Abstract

he object of this paper is to give the reader an outline of the JL_ various theories concerning the linguistic position of New Guinea 1 ) and to discuss in addition the interest of linguistic research in this area and its special attractions.For it is not going too far to assert that the languages of New Guinea, in fact of the whole insular area surrounding it, offer a very interesting linguistic constellation, not only by their peculiar features but particularly by the unusually intricate phenomena of their mutual relations.Moreover there are farreaching changes going on in the linguistic situation owing to interlingual contact.Such changes must also have been of frequent occurrence in the past and many theories have been framed to explain the problems resulting from these events.It is not my intention to add a new theory to those already existing, but only to show why these languages deserve special attention, and to discuss some questions which may be found to be of vast concern for future research.It is of no use to enter at length into the older theories on the relationship of the languages which we are now used to call Austronesian.When that relationship had become apparent, about the beginning of the nineteenth; century, it received more attention than the question of the limitation of the group.Indeed it was impossible to define the boundaries as only scanty data were available about some languages.Any idea about a possible special position of the languages of New Guinea only arose on reason of the different physical characteristics of the inhabitants of that island.As more data were gathered, again and again the conclusion was drawn that, from a linguistic point of view, New Guinea belonged to Austronesia.Sometimes the data gave cause for that conclusion, but in other cases the interpretation was not free-from prejudice.Such statements are found in some books of travel in addition to ethno-

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