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Austronesian Undressed: How and why languages become isolating
Edited by David Gil and Antoinette Schapper
[Typological Studies in Language 129] 2020
► pp. 447–482

Chapter 10
Becoming Austronesian

Mechanisms of language dispersal across southern Island Southeast Asia and the collapse of Austronesian morphosyntax

| Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages
| The Australian National University

We examine the spread of Austronesian languages as a process that proceeded in different ways at different times, even in the same locale. We examine the many ways a language can show ‘Austronesian traits’, and confront this with the known presence of pre-Austronesian languages across Island Southeast Asia, and the inferred similarity of social processes between mainland and Island Southeast Asia. We argue that many languages which are classified as Austronesian are indeed exemplary Austronesian languages, but that many others should be considered to be the outcome of creolisation processes, and yet others show the traces of scenarios involving (imperfect) language shift from earlier non-Austronesian languages. Indeed, ‘many’ of the languages should be considered to be non-Austronesian languages (‘Papuan’) with (in some cases minimal) Austronesian (lexical) veneers.

Keywords: language contact, creolisation, substrate, family profile, typology, Island Southeast Asia, Austronesian
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction: The spread of Austronesian languages across Island Southeast Asia
  • 2.The unnaturalness of isolation
  • 3.Southern Southeast Asia
  • 4.Accounting for language distributions
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 21 October 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.129.10don
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