Restricted access
Research articles
Research articlesThe riddle of Tasmanian languages
Published:26 September 2012https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2012.1842
Abstract
Recent work which combines methods from linguistics and evolutionary biology has been fruitful in discovering the history of major language families because of similarities in evolutionary processes. Such work opens up new possibilities for language research on previously unsolvable problems, especially in areas where information from other sources may be lacking. I use phylogenetic methods to investigate Tasmanian languages. Existing materials are so fragmentary that scholars have been unable to discover how many languages are represented in the sources. Using a clustering algorithm which identifies admixture, source materials representing more than one language are identified. Using the Neighbor-Net algorithm, 12 languages are identified in five clusters. Bayesian phylogenetic methods reveal that the families are not demonstrably related; an important result, given the importance of Tasmanian Aborigines for information about how societies have responded to population collapse in prehistory. This work provides insight into the societies of prehistoric Tasmania and illustrates a new utility of phylogenetics in reconstructing linguistic history.
References
- 1
- 2
Plomley N. J. B. (ed.) 1966 Friendly mission; the Tasmanian journals and papers, 1829–1834. Hobart, Australia: Tasmanian Historical Research Association 1966. Google Scholar - 3
Jones R. M. . 1971 Rocky Cape and the problem of the Tasmanians. PhD Thesis. University of Sydney, Sydney. Google Scholar - 4
Ryan L. . 1981 The aboriginal Tasmanians. St. Lucia, Australia: University of Queensland Press. Google Scholar - 5
Plomley N. J. . 1976 A word-list of the Tasmanian Aboriginal languages. Hobart, Australia: N. Plomley in association with the Government of Tasmania. Google Scholar - 6
Crowley T.& Dixon R. M. W. . 1981 Handbook of Australian languages (Tasmanian), vol. 2, pp. 394–427. Google Scholar - 7
Wurm S. A. . 1971 Classifications of Australian languages, including Tasmanian. Current trends in linguistics (ed.& Sebeok T. A. ), pp. 721–778. The Hague: Mouton. Google Scholar - 8
Crowley T. . 1996 Early language contact in Tasmania. Atlas of languages of intercultural communication in the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas (eds, Wurm S. A., Mühlhäusler P.& Tryon D. T. ), p. 25. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar - 9
- 10
Powell A., Shennan S.& Thomas M. G. . 2009 Late Pleistocene demography and the appearance of modern human behavior. Science 324, 1298.doi:10.1126/science.1170165 (doi:10.1126/science.1170165). Crossref, PubMed, Web of Science, Google Scholar - 11
Henrich J. . 2004 Demography and cultural evolution: how adaptive cultural processes can produce maladaptive losses: the Tasmanian case. Am. Antiquity 69, 197–214.doi:10.2307/4128416 (doi:10.2307/4128416). Crossref, Web of Science, Google Scholar - 12
- 13
Jones R. . 1995 Tasmanian archaeology: establishing the sequences. Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 24, 423–446.doi:10.1146/annurev.an.24.100195.002231 (doi:10.1146/annurev.an.24.100195.002231). Crossref, Web of Science, Google Scholar - 14
Pardoe C., Bowdler S., Brace C. L., Plomley N., Turner C. G.& Wolfpoff M. H. . 1991 Isolation and evolution in Tasmania (and comments and reply). Curr. Anthropol. 32, 1–21.doi:10.1086/203909 (doi:10.1086/203909). Crossref, Web of Science, Google Scholar - 15
Bowdler S. . 2010 The empty coast: conditions for human occupation in southeast Australia during the late Pleistocene. Terra Australis 32, 177–185. Google Scholar - 16
Thomas I. . 1993 Late pleistocene environments and aboriginal settlement patterns in Tasmania. Aust. Archaeol. 36, 1–11. Crossref, Google Scholar - 17
van Holst Pellekaan S. . 2011 Genetic evidence for the colonization of Australia. Quat. Int. 30, 1–13.doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2011.04.014 (doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2011.04.014). Crossref, Web of Science, Google Scholar - 18
O'Connell J.& Allen J. . 2004 Dating the colonization of Sahul (Pleistocene Australia–New Guinea): a review of recent research. J. Archaeol. Sci. 31, 835–853.doi:10.1016/j.jas.2003.11.005 (doi:10.1016/j.jas.2003.11.005). Crossref, Web of Science, Google Scholar - 19
Presser J. C., Stoneking M.& Redd A. J. . 2002 Tasmanian aborigines and DNA. Papers Proc. R. Soc. Tasmania 136, 35–38. Crossref, Google Scholar - 20
Walker G. W., Walker J. B.& Tasmania R. S. . 1898 Notes on the Aborigines of Tasmania. Hobart, Australia: William Grahame, Jun., Govt. Printer. Google Scholar - 21
Reesink G., Singer R.& Dunn M. . 2009 Explaining the linguistic diversity of sahul using population models. PLoS Biol. 7, e1000241.doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1000241 (doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1000241). Crossref, PubMed, Web of Science, Google Scholar - 22
Gray R. D., Drummond A. J.& Greenhill S. J. . 2009 Language phylogenies reveal expansion pulses and pauses in Pacific settlement. Science 323, 479–483.doi:10.1126/science.1166858 (doi:10.1126/science.1166858). Crossref, PubMed, Web of Science, Google Scholar - 23
Jones C.& Laffan S. . 2008 Lexical similarity and endemism in historical wordlists of Australian Aboriginal languages of the greater Sydney region. Trans. Philol. Soc. 106, 456–486.doi:10.1111/j.1467-968X.2008.00209.x (doi:10.1111/j.1467-968X.2008.00209.x). Crossref, Web of Science, Google Scholar - 24
Hunley K., Bowern C.& Healy M. . 2012 Rejection of a Serial Founder Effects Model of Genetic and Linguistic Coevolution. Proc. R. Soc. B 279, 2281–2288.doi:10.1098/rspb.2011.2296 (doi:10.1098/rspb.2011.2296). Link, Web of Science, Google Scholar - 25
Atkinson Q. D.& Gray R. D. . 2005 Curious parallels and curious connections: phylogenetic thinking in biology and historical linguistics. Syst. Biol. 54, 513–26.doi:10.1080/10635150590950317 (doi:10.1080/10635150590950317). Crossref, PubMed, Web of Science, Google Scholar - 26
Nash D. . 2002 Historical linguistic geography of south-east Western Australia. Language in native title (eds, Henderson J.& Nash D. ), pp. 205–230. Canberra, Australia: Aboriginal Studies Press. Google Scholar - 27
Pritchard J. K., Stephens M.& Donnelly P. . 2000 Inference of population structure using multilocus genotype data. Genetics 155, 945. Crossref, PubMed, Web of Science, Google Scholar - 28
Holland B. R., Huber K. T., Moulton V.& Lockhart P. J. . 2004 Using consensus networks to visualize contradictory evidence for species phylogeny. Mol. Biol. Evol. 21, 1459–1461.doi:10.1093/molbev/msh145 (doi:10.1093/molbev/msh145). Crossref, PubMed, Web of Science, Google Scholar - 29
Huson D. H.& Bryant D. . 2006 Application of phylogenetic networks in evolutionary studies. Mol. Biol. Evol. 23, 254–267.doi:10.1093/molbev/msj030 (doi:10.1093/molbev/msj030). Crossref, PubMed, Web of Science, Google Scholar - 30
Milligan J. . 1857 Vocabulary of dialects of aboriginal tribes in Tasmania. Hobart, Australia: James Barnard, Government printer. Google Scholar - 31
Milligan J. . 1890 Vocabulary of the dialects of some of the aboriginal tribes of Tasmania. Hobart, Australia: Government Printer. Google Scholar - 32
- 33
Dyen I., Kruskal J. B.& Black P. . 1992 An Indo-European classification: a lexicostatistical experiment. Trans. Am. Phil. Soc. 82, iii–132.doi:10.2307/1006517 (doi:10.2307/1006517). Crossref, Google Scholar - 34
Drummond A. J.& Rambaut A. . 2007 BEAST: Bayesian evolutionary analysis by sampling trees. BMC Evol. Biol. 7, 214.doi:10.1186/1471-2148-7-214 (doi:10.1186/1471-2148-7-214). Crossref, PubMed, Web of Science, Google Scholar - 35
Ruhlen M. . 1994 On the origin of languages: studies in linguistic taxonomy. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. Google Scholar - 36
Cavalli-Sforza L. L. . 2001 Genes, peoples, and languages. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Google Scholar - 37
Greenberg J. H. . 1971 The Indo-Pacific hypothesis. Current trends in linguistics 8, 809–871. Google Scholar - 38
O'Grady G.& Hale K. L. . 2004 The coherence and distinctiveness of the Pama-Nyungan language family within the Australian linguistic phylum. Australian languages: classification and the comparative method (eds, Bowern C.& Koch H. ), pp. 69–92. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamins. Google Scholar - 39
Hale K. . 1964 Classification of Northern Paman languages, Cape York Peninsula, Australia: a research report. Oceanic Linguist. 3, 248–265.doi:10.2307/3622881 (doi:10.2307/3622881). Crossref, Google Scholar - 40
Evans N.& Jones R. . 1997 The cradle of the Pama-Nyungans: archaeological and linguistic speculations. Archaeology and linguistics: Aboriginal Australia in global perspective (eds, McConvell P.& Evans N. ), pp. 385–417. Melbourne, Australia: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar - 41
Evans N.& McConvell P. . 1997 The enigma of Pama-Nyungan expansion in Australia. Archaeology and language II, pp. 174–191. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. Google Scholar - 42
Foley R. A. . 2004 The evolutionary ecology of linguistic diversity in human populations. Traces of ancestry: studies in honour of Colin Renfrew (ed.& Jones M. ). Cambridge, UK: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. Google Scholar - 43
Walker J. . 1897 Some notes on the tribal divisions of the Aborigines of Tasmania. Pap. Proc. R. Soc. Tasmania 1897, 176–187. Google Scholar - 44
Hill J. H. . 1978 Language contact systems and human adaptations. J. Anthropol. Res. 34, 1–26. Crossref, Web of Science, Google Scholar - 45
Nettle D.& Romaine S. . 2000 Vanishing voices: the extinction of the world's languages. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar - 46
Gray R. D., Greenhill S. J.& Ross R. M. . 2007 The pleasures and perils of darwinizing culture (with phylogenies). Biol. Theory 2, 360–375.doi:10.1162/biot.2007.2.4.360 (doi:10.1162/biot.2007.2.4.360). Crossref, Google Scholar - 47
Greenhill S. J., Blust R.& Gray R. D. . 2008 The Austronesian basic vocabulary database: from bioinformatics to lexomics. Evol. Bioinform. Online 4, 271. Crossref, PubMed, Web of Science, Google Scholar - 48
McMahon A.& McMahon R. . 2005 Language classification by numbers. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar - 49
Rosenberg N. A., Pritchard J. K., Weber J. L., Cann H. M., Kidd K. K., Zhivotovsky L. A.& Feldman M. W. . 2002 Genetic structure of human populations. Science 298, 2381–2385.doi:10.1126/science.1078311 (doi:10.1126/science.1078311). Crossref, PubMed, Web of Science, Google Scholar
