In his book ‘Guns, Germs and Steel’, Jared Diamond presents some well-researched and very convincing evidence to suggest that, indeed, the whole “Austronesian expansion” started in China, moved across the strait to Taiwan, and on to all other countries in the South Pacific.
His arguement is based on two main pools of evidence:
language distribution:
" … the whole Austronesian language family conists of 959 languages, divided among four subfamilies. But one of those subfamilies, termed Malayo-Polynesian, comprises 945 of those 959 languages and covers almost the entire geographic range of the Austronesian family … it turns out that those three other subfamilies have coincident distribution … they are confined to aborigines of the island of Taiwan."
Further …"The concentration of three out of four of the Austronesian subfamilies on Taiwan suggest that, within the present Austronesian realm, Taiwan is the homeland where Austronesian languages have been spoken for the most millenia and have consequently had the longest time in which to diverge. All other Austronesian languages, from Madagascar to those on Easter Island, would then stem from a population expansion out of Taiwan."
archaelogical evidence:
“The first archaelogical signs of something different within the Austronesian realm come from - Taiwan.”
“For example, the decorated Ta-p’en-k’eng pottery on Taiwan (dated 3500 B.C.) … has also been found at sites in the Philippines (dated 3000 B.C.), and on Indonesian islands (dated 2500 B.C.) … Java and Sumatra (2000 B.C.), and around 1600 B.C. in the New Guinea area.”
He goes on to say, “…the last phases of the expansion, during the millennium after A.D.1, resulted in the colonization of every Polynesian and Micronesian island capable of supporting humans.”
Anyway, I highly recommend his book (which by the way won the Pulitzer Prize) - an absolutley fascinating read!
What the previous poster mentions about the Taiwan aborigine languages being most diverse of the Austronesian family is often referred to in anthropology as “ripples on a pond theory”, the idea being that at a culture’s source there will be most variation. It works linguistics too though it’s important to note that a linguistic connection does not necessarily indicate a genetic link.
In the case of Taiwanese aborigines and Polynesians there is clearly a linguistic cultural and genetic link and there is pretty good evidence to suggest Taiwan as the ancestral homeland of Austronesian people. It is of course an oversimplification to say that Polynesians came from Taiwan. The migration of people has always been a complicated and variegated process.
OK, so as part of my latest (and probably unfortunately brief) thing, I found the Bunun words for the numbers 1 through 10.
1 - Kasa
2 - Rusa
3 - Tau
4 - Pat
5 - Ima
6 - Nom
7 - Pitu
8 - Vau
9 - Siva
10 - Mase’an
Goddamn that is, aside from 10 (and 1, kind of), something amazing… I can already see how that could have evolved over the centuries into the Maori numbers…
You quote “Kasa = 10” in Bunun. I can easily see how that would be cognate with Tahi. In polynesian languages k/t at times have been seen to be interchangeable (old Hawaiian).
This must be a dialect difference, because I was taught whetu, and a quick Google backs me up numerically. Wouldn’t surprise me to find out whetu is Tainui though.
A few of the arts and crafts, clothing, weapons, totems, and boats the Aboriginals in Taiwan have really remind me of the exact same things Natives in the Pacific Northwest of the States and Western Canada along the coast of Birtish columbia have.
Unfortunately I haven’t spent much time in the areas in Taiwan that are mostly Aboriginal to compare if there is a link or if the traditional items mentioned are made the same way as each other.
This must be a dialect difference, because I was taught whetu, and a quick Google backs me up numerically. Wouldn’t surprise me to find out whetu is Tainui though.[/quote]
well, I was one of the few(only infact) white boys that actually opted to study Maori Language for a couple of years at school instead of French or German.
I go with “whetu”.
“whitu” would be pronounced ‘fee-too’ which doesn’t sound right either.
Well now, I studied at Otago but the books we used were devised by Waikato university so I can’t imagine that “whetu” is Tainui dialect as we were taught “whitu”.
There is no standard dialect of Maori. Ray Harlow who taught linguistics at Otago identified 14 dialects (15 if you include Moriori) “whetu” may well be common to some dialects but I must be honest it’s the first I’ve heard of it.
googlegooglegooglegooglegoogle[/quote]I googled whitu and 7 yesterday and it turned up a lot more sites than whetu and 7. It must be true it’s on the internet.
googlegooglegooglegooglegoogle[/quote]I googled whitu and 7 yesterday and it turned up a lot more sites than whetu and 7. It must be true it’s on the internet.[/quote]
But when I googled whetu, waru, and iwa as a group I got many more than with whitu, so what I think we’ve discovered is we’re all right.
It depends how you google. Try “whetu=7” I got 4 replies, mostly forums.
“whitu=7” gets 32
If you just google whetu and 7 you are going to get a lot of replies because "whetu’ is a very common name. “whitu” is just a number.
I will say again I never heard of whetu meaning seven. My dictionary also disagrees with you. I will strick my neck out here and say that “whetu” is just wrong. Show me a reputable source!
[quote=“WeiLong”]I will say again I never heard of whetu meaning seven. My dictionary also disagrees with you. I will strick my neck out here and say that “whetu” is just wrong. Show me a reputable source![/quote]I’ll give it a shot. Might see if my parents back in the long white cloud can secure a Maori dictionary. But I am 100% convinced that whetu is not wrong. It may well not be the most common, but Maori is hardly the most standardized language to start with, and it’s definitely, definitely the one we were taught down in South Waikato. It’s possible, like I think I said before, that it’s a regional variation.
The Ngata Dictionary is the only dictionary that I know of online. It’s pretty reputable. It’s based on Ngati Porou (sp?) E Coast Maori. It has whitu for seven and not whetu. But oddly enough I also remember whetu. Maybe it’s wrong or a variation, that crept into school syllabuses or something?