Malcolm David Ross (born 1942) is an Australian

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

. He is the emeritus professor of

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

at the

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and ...

. Ross is best known among linguists for his work on Austronesian and

Papuan languages The Papuan languages are the non- Austronesian and non-Australian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, as well as neighbouring islands, by around 4 million people. It is a strictly geogra ...

historical linguistics Historical linguistics, also termed diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of language change over time. Principal concerns of historical linguistics include: # to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages # ...

, and

language contact Language contact occurs when speakers of two or more languages or varieties interact and influence each other. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics. When speakers of different languages interact closely, it is typical for th ...

(especially metatypy). He was elected as a Fellow of the

Australian Academy of the Humanities The Australian Academy of the Humanities was established by Royal Charter in 1969 to advance scholarship and public interest in the humanities in Australia. It operates as an independent not-for-profit organisation partly funded by the Australia ...

in 1996.

Career

Ross served as the Principal of Goroka Teachers College in

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

from 1980 to 1982, during which time he self-statedly become interested in local languages, and began to collect data on them. In 1986, he received his PhD from the ANU under the supervision of Stephen Wurm,

Bert Voorhoeve Clemens Lambertus Voorhoeve (born 1930; also known as "Bert" Voorhoeve) is a Dutch linguist who specializes in Papuan languages. Education He completed his higher education in the Netherlands. He obtained his PhD in linguistics at Leiden Universi ...

and Darrell Tryon. His dissertation was on the genealogy of the

Oceanic languages The approximately 450 Oceanic languages are a branch of the Austronesian languages. The area occupied by speakers of these languages includes Polynesia, as well as much of Melanesia and Micronesia. Though covering a vast area, Oceanic languages ...

of western Melanesia, and contained an early reconstruction of

Proto Oceanic Proto-Oceanic (abbr. ''POc'') is a proto-language that historical linguists since Otto Dempwolff have reconstructed as the hypothetical common ancestor of the Oceanic subgroup of the Austronesian language family. Proto-Oceanic is a descendant ...

. Malcolm Ross introduced the concept of a

linkage Linkage may refer to: * ''Linkage'' (album), by J-pop singer Mami Kawada, released in 2010 *Linkage (graph theory), the maximum min-degree of any of its subgraphs *Linkage (horse), an American Thoroughbred racehorse * Linkage (hierarchical cluster ...

, a group of languages that evolves via dialect differentiation rather than by tree-like splits. Together with

Andrew Pawley Andrew Kenneth Pawley (born 1941 in Sydney), FRSNZ, FAHA, is Emeritus Professor at the School of Culture, History & Language of the ''College of Asia & the Pacific'' at the Australian National University. Career Pawley was born in Sydney but ...

and Meredith Osmond, Ross has contributed to the Proto-Oceanic Lexicon Project, which has produced several volumes of reconstructed Proto-Oceanic vocabulary in various semantic domains.''Oceanic Lexicon Project'' homepage
/ref> More recently, Ross has published on

Formosan languages The Formosan languages are a geographic grouping comprising the languages of the indigenous peoples of Taiwan, all of which are Austronesian. They do not form a single subfamily of Austronesian but rather nine separate subfamilies. The Taiwa ...

and the reconstruction of

Proto-Austronesian Proto-Austronesian (commonly abbreviated as PAN or PAn) is a proto-language. It is the reconstructed ancestor of the Austronesian languages, one of the world's major language families. Proto-Austronesian is assumed to have begun to diversify ...

phonology and syntax.

Notes

External links

Malcolm Ross's page on the ANU website Malcolm Ross's Curriculum Vitae
(dated 5 Oct 2020)
Malcolm Ross's entry in LinguisTree
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ross, Malcolm 1942 births Living people Australian National University faculty Linguists of Papuan languages Linguists of Madang languages Linguists of Austronesian languages Linguists of Formosan languages Alumni of the University of Bristol Massey University alumni Paleolinguists Historical linguists