Phylogenesis of the Dreamtime
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/lhs.v8i3.335Keywords:
Australian languages, language evolution, language and culture, comparative mythology, archaeology and languageAbstract
The aim of this paper is to sketch some possible correlations between phases in the development of languages in Australia, and phases in the archaeological record of people in the continent. The technique is to compare Australian language groupings, at the scales of phylum, family, group, language and dialect, with events in the climatic and archaeological history of the continent. The emerging historical account is also correlated with other evidence from linguistics, anthropology and mythology, to identify four broad historical phases associated with expansions and contractions of resources and human populations. Universalist maxims about rates of language and cultural change are challenged by these data, suggesting that rates of change in Australia may have been considerably slower than rates in Europe, where such maxims originate. It is argued that this gradual change is more consistent with Aboriginal communities’ own accounts of their histories.
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Veth, P. (2000) Origins of the Western Desert language: Convergence in linguistic and archaeological space and time models. Archaeology in Oceania, 35 (1): 11–19.
Williams, P. W., King, D. N. T., Zhao, J.-X. and Collerson, K. D. (2004) Speleothem master chronologies: Combined Holocene 18O and 13C records from the North Island of New Zealand and their palaeoenvironmental interpretation. The Holocene 14 (2): 194–208. http://dx.doi.org/10.1191/0959683604hl676rp
Walsh, M. (1997) Cross cultural communication problems in Aboriginal Australia. Darwin: North Australia Research Unit. Discussion Paper No.7/1997. 23pp.
Andrews, M. (2004) The Seven Sisters of the Pleiades: Stories from Around the World. Melbourne: Spinifex.
Bowern, C. and Koch, H. (eds) (2004) Australian Languages: The Classification and Comparative Method. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Caffarel, A., Martin, J. R. and Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (eds) (2004) Language Typology: A Functional Perspective. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Campbell, L (2004) Foreword. In C. Bowern and H. Koch (eds) Australian Languages: The Classification and Comparative Method, ix. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Clendon, M. (2006) Reassessing Australia’s linguistic prehistory. Current Anthropology 47 (1): 39–61. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/497671
Dixon, R. M. W. (1996) Origin legends and linguistic relationships. Oceania 67 (2): 127–139.
Dixon, R. M. W. (1980) The Languages of Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dixon, R. M. W. (2002) Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511486869
Haberle, S. and David, B. (2004) Climates of change: Human dimensions of Holocene environmental change in low latitudes of the PEPII transect. Quaternary International, 118–119.
Hiscock, P. and Attenbrow V. (2003) Early Australian implement variation: A reduction model. Journal of Archaeological Science 30: 239–249. http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/jasc.2002.0830
Keen, I. (2006) Constraints on the development of enduring inequalities in Late Holocene Australia. Current Anthropology 47 (1): 7–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/497672
McConvell, P. (1985) The origin of subsections in northern Australia. Oceania 56 (1): 1–33.
McConvell, P. (1996) Backtracking to Babel: The chronology of Pama-Nyungan expansion in Australia. Archaeology in Oceania, 31 (3): 125–144.
Maddock, K (1972) The Australian Aborigines: A Portrait of their Society. Baltimore: Penguin.
Mountford, C P. (1948/1962) Brown Men and Red Sand: Journeyings in Wild Australia. Sydney: Angus & Robertson.
O’Connell, J. F. and Allen, J. (2004) Dating the colonization of Sahul (Pleistocene Australia-New Guinea): A Review of Recent Research. Journal of Archaeological Science 31: 835–853. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2003.11.005
O’Connell, J. F. and Allen, J. (2007) Pre-LGM Sahul (Australia-New Guinea) and the archaeology of early modern humans. In P. Mellars (ed.) Rethinking the Human Revolution: New Behavioural and Biological Perspectives on the Origin and Dispersal of Modern Humans, 395–410. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.
O’Grady G. and Hale, K. (2004) The coherence and distinctiveness of the Pama-Nyungan language family with the Australian linguistic phylum. In C. Bowern and H. Koch (eds) Australian Languages: The Classification and Comparative Method, 69–92. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Rose, D. (2001) The Western Desert Code: an Australian cryptogrammar. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
Rose, D. (2005) Narrative and the origins of discourse: patterns of discourse in stories around the world. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics Series S19: 151–173.
Rose, D. (2006) A systemic functional model of language evolution. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 16 (1): 73–96.
Rose, J. W. W. (in preparation) Genealogical and Geospatial Cohesion in South-east Australia. PhD Thesis, University of Melbourne.
Rumsey, A. (1993/2005) Language and territoriality in Aboriginal Australia. In M. Walsh and C. Yallop (eds) Language and Culture in Aboriginal Australia. Canberra: AITSIS.
Smith, W. R. (1930) Myths and Legends of the Australian Aboriginals London: Harrap.
Sutton, P. (2002) Linguistic evidence in native title cases in Australia. In J. Henderson and D. Nash (eds) Language in Native Title. Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra.
Thomas, M. (2011) The many worlds of R. H. Mathews: In Search of an Australian Anthropologist. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
Veth, P. (1995) Aridity and settlement in northwest Australia. Antiquity 69: 733–746.
Veth, P. (2000) Origins of the Western Desert language: Convergence in linguistic and archaeological space and time models. Archaeology in Oceania, 35 (1): 11–19.
Williams, P. W., King, D. N. T., Zhao, J.-X. and Collerson, K. D. (2004) Speleothem master chronologies: Combined Holocene 18O and 13C records from the North Island of New Zealand and their palaeoenvironmental interpretation. The Holocene 14 (2): 194–208. http://dx.doi.org/10.1191/0959683604hl676rp
Walsh, M. (1997) Cross cultural communication problems in Aboriginal Australia. Darwin: North Australia Research Unit. Discussion Paper No.7/1997. 23pp.
Published
2013-12-05
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Section
Articles
How to Cite
Rose, D. (2013). Phylogenesis of the Dreamtime. Linguistics and the Human Sciences, 8(3), 335-359. https://doi.org/10.1558/lhs.v8i3.335
