Linguistic and Biological Diversity Overlap—But Why?

May 17, 2012 by

Linguistic and Biological Diversity Overlap—But Why?

In the early 21st century biodiversity worldwide is sharply decreasing, with annual losses of plant and animal species estimated to be 1,000 times greater than historic rates. As the world is becoming less biologically diverse, it is...

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On conservativity

May 4, 2012 by

On conservativity

Some words, like fashion fads, appear in the language and disappear without a trace soon thereafter. Other words (and morphemes) are much more conservative. In this brief post, I will cite just two examples of highly conservative...

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On the Austronesian Homeland

May 30, 2011 by

In response to my posting on the Japanese homeland and the connection between Japanese and Austronesian languages, Kalvin Vasques expressed some doubts about the Out-of-Taiwan theory of Austronesian homeland. The key to the...

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Javanese influence on Japanese

May 9, 2011 by

In the previous posting, I discussed the issue of the (pre)historic Japanese homeland. Scholars of Japanese prehistory typically distinguish two cultures that merged to create the Japanese culture as we know it: the earlier Jōmon...

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Hanunoo Color Categories

Mar 16, 2011 by

In an important paper published in Southwestern Journal of Anthropology in 1955, Harold Conklin presented a description of the color categorization system of Hanunoo, a Philippine language spoken in the southern part of the Mindoro...

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Norfuk Language

Dec 9, 2010 by

To continue our theme of the fate of English in far and remote places, today we will look at Norfuk language, a form of English spoken on Norfolk and Pitcairn islands in South Pacific. In fact, Norfuk is not just a form of English,...

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