TAIWANS GIFT TO THE WORLD Iwen Su Based

TAIWAN’S GIFT TO THE WORLD 授課老師：蘇以文 I-wen Su Based on Jared M. Diamond (2000) a professor of UCLA National Academy of Sciences of USA and American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Unless noted, the course materials are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution -Non. Commercial-Share. Alike 3. 0 Taiwan (CC BY-NC-SA 3. 0)

The importance of Taiwan Formosan Languages Humans are defined by our languages The role of Taiwan in human history Austronesian language family (1200 languages) tells us a great deal about the history of Pacific peoples and boatbuilding, as well as about aboriginal Australia. Austronesia language family is possibly the largest family among the 6, 000 languages of the modern world Jared M. Diamond , Linguistics: Taiwan's gift to the world. Nature 403, 709 -710(17 February 2000)

The geographical span of Austronesian languages Jared M. Diamond , Linguistics: Taiwan's gift to the world. Nature 403, 709 -710(17 February 2000) Out of the ten subgroups of Austronesian languages, -- 9 are confined to Taiwan (red circle) -- all Austronesian langs outside Taiwan belong to the 10 th (green), which includes Polynesian Jared M. Diamond , Linguistics: Taiwan's gift to the world. languages (dark green) Nature 403, 709 -710(17 February 2000)

Austronesian languages: 10 subgroups Those 1, 200 Austronesian languages fall into ten subgroups, of which nine (containing only 26 languages) are spoken only by the non. Chinese aborigines of the island of Taiwan. The tenth subgroup encompasses all Austronesian languages outside Taiwan, from Madagascar to east Polynesia — 1, 174 of them. Jared M. Diamond , Linguistics: Taiwan's gift to the world. Nature 403, 709 -710(17 February 2000)

Austronesian Languages: The most widely distributed family � encompassing all languages spoken on all Pacific islands � spoken across a realm spanning 26, 000 km from Madagascar in the west to Easter Island in the east � There are no preserved samples of writing in any Austronesian language until about AD 670, when the family’s expansion was nearly complete.

How do lang families differentiate? Languages change over time, and dialects once mutually intelligible gradually become more and more distinct. The early diversification of existing Austronesian languages must have taken place long ago, on Taiwan. Eventually, just one group of Taiwanese migrated to other islands, and their descendants in turn emigrated to still other islands, to become ancestral to all living Austronesian peoples outside Taiwan

Polynesian expansion correlates well with archaeological evidence Studies of pots, tools and bones have shown that all farming in the Pacific outside New Guinea stems from the colonization of Taiwan by south Chinese farmers by around 4300 BC, followed by their expansion through the Philippines and Indonesia to Polynesia, the Malay peninsula and Madagascar

First potters must have spoken Austronesian languages Because all traditional languages throughout Polynesia are Austronesian! In the Pacific, identifying the pot-makers is easy, because all Polynesian islands were uninhabited until the arrival of people making so-called Lapita pots began at around 1200 BC, and there is no archaeological evidence for arrivals of other peoples after them.

for those interested in boats the details of Austronesian languages prove as instructive as this main pattern The contrast between big differences among Taiwanese languages and much more modest differences among extra-Taiwanese languages suggests that there was a ‘long pause’ between the Austronesian colonization of Taiwan and the Austronesian expansion out of Taiwan.

Long pause long pause confirmed by archaeological evidence. there was a 1, 000 -year gap (from about 4300 to 3300 BC) between farmers’ colonization of Taiwan and their subsequent colonization of the Philippines

Why the long pause? the time required to develop the leap in boat technology � Crossing the 375 -km seas separating Taiwan from the Philippines would have required much better boats than crossing the 140 -km strait betw mainland China and Taiwan The ship-building revolution that brought the Philippines and Indonesia within reach -- the invention of outrigger canoes. Many words were identified by Blust for the component parts of these canoes in extra-Taiwanese Austronesian languages, but none in the Taiwanese languages � In historical times, canoes were widespread among Austronesian peoples except for the Taiwanese

Two such long pauses in fact a further 1, 000 -year gap (from about 1200 to 200 BC) between the Lapita colonization of west Polynesia and the colonization of east Polynesia Blust, Robert (1999). "Subgrouping, circularity and extinction: Both for the same reason, according to Blust some issues in Austronesian comparative".

Issue in Historical Linguistics The 260 or so Aboriginal Australian languages are usually considered to belong to a single language family. People living in Australia for 50, 000 some years, ample time for repeated differentiation of language families � Aboriginal Australian history: lacking the homogenizing population movements analogous to the spread of Chinese farmers – one language family could replace all others Australian languages are similar in sounds but diverse in their vocabularies � linguists consider these languages related but had to Blust, Robert (1999). "Subgrouping, circularity and extinction: explain away their divergent vocabularies (Blust 1999) some issues in Austronesian comparative".

Sounds from language contact The diversity in Taiwanese languages was formerly overlooked for several reasons, including their similar sound inventories, for instance the lack of so-called palatal consonants (such as zh, ch, sh). Blust points to other cases in which similar sound systems have spread over geographically adjacent languages families whose distinctness on other grounds is beyond question. This sharing of sounds is expected to develop in an area (such as Aboriginal Australia) where each language is confined to a small tribelet, and where all children grow up multilingual so they can Blust, Robert (1999). "Subgrouping, circularity and extinction: understand marry members of neighboring some issues in Austronesian comparative". tribelets

A Hypothesis Suppose an English tribelet and a French tribelet, thrown together with 258 others in an area the size of Australia, were forced to mate with members from other tribelets, and were left in isolation for 50, 000 years. >> At the end of that era, there might still be 260 languages with distinct vocabularies and grammars, but French and English might now be similar in their sounds The multilingualism of Aboriginal Taiwanese and Australians represented the norm for almost all of human history

Copyright Declaration Work p. 12, 13, 14 Licensing Author/Source Jared M. Diamond , Linguistics: Taiwan's gift to the world. Nature 403, 709 -710(17 February 2000) http: //www. nature. com/nature/journal/v 403/n 6771/fig_ta b/403709 a 0_F 1. html and used subject to the fair use doctrine of the Taiwan Copyright Act Article 50 by GET Blust, Robert (1999). "Subgrouping, circularity and extinction: some issues in Austronesian comparative". In Zeitoun, E. ; Li, P. J. K. Selected papers from the Eighth International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics. Taipei: Academia Sinica. pp. 31– 94. and used subject to the fair use doctrine of the Taiwan Copyright Act Article 50 by GET

Copyright Declaration Work p. 2, 3, 4 Licensing Author/Source Jared M. Diamond , Linguistics: Taiwan's gift to the world. Nature 403, 709 -710(17 February 2000) http: //www. nature. com/nature/journal/v 403/n 6771/fig_ta b/403709 a 0_F 1. html and used subject to the fair use doctrine of the Taiwan Copyright Act Article 50 by GET