Proto-Oceanic (abbr. ''POc'') is a

proto-language In the tree model of historical linguistics, a proto-language is a postulated ancestral language from which a number of attested languages are believed to have descended by evolution, forming a language family. Proto-languages are usually unattest ...

that historical linguists since

Otto Dempwolff Otto Dempwolff (25 May 1871 in Pillau, Province of Prussia – 27 November 1938, in Hamburg) was a German physician, linguist and anthropologist who specialized in the study of the Austronesian language family. Initially trained as a physician, ...

have reconstructed as the hypothetical common ancestor of the Oceanic subgroup of the Austronesian language family. Proto-Oceanic is a descendant of the

Proto-Austronesian language 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 ...

(PAN), the common ancestor of the Austronesian languages. Proto-Oceanic was probably spoken around the late 3rd millennium BCE in the

Bismarck Archipelago The Bismarck Archipelago (, ) is a group of islands off the northeastern coast of New Guinea in the western Pacific Ocean and is part of the Islands Region of Papua New Guinea. Its area is about 50,000 square km. History The first inhabitants o ...

, east of

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 ...

. Archaeologists and linguists currently agree that its community more or less coincides with the

Lapita culture The Lapita culture is the name given to a Neolithic Austronesian people and their material culture, who settled Island Melanesia via a seaborne migration at around 1600 to 500 BCE. They are believed to have originated from the northern Philipp ...

Linguistic characteristics

The methodology of

comparative linguistics Comparative linguistics, or comparative-historical linguistics (formerly comparative philology) is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness. Genetic relatedness ...

, together with the relative homogeneity of

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 ...

, make it possible to reconstruct with reasonable certainty the principal linguistic properties of their common ancestor, Proto-Oceanic. Like all scientific hypotheses, these reconstructions must be understood as obviously reflecting the state of science at a particular moment in time; the detail of these reconstructions is still the object of much discussion among Oceanicist scholars.

Phonology

The phonology of POc can be reconstructed with reasonable certainty. Proto-Oceanic had five vowels: *i, *e, *a, *o, *u, with no length contrast. Twenty-three consonants are reconstructed. When the conventional transcription of a protophoneme differs from its value in the

IPA IPA commonly refers to: * India pale ale, a style of beer * International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation * Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound IPA may also refer to: Organizations International * Insolvency Practitioners ...

, the latter is indicated: Based on evidence from the Southern Oceanic and Micronesian languages,

Lynch Lynch may refer to: Places Australia * Lynch Island, South Orkney Islands, Antarctica * Lynch Point, Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica * Lynch's Crater, Queensland, Australia England * River Lynch, Hertfordshire * The Lynch, an island in the River ...

(2003) proposes that the bilabial series may have been phonetically realized as palatalized: .

Basic word order

Many Oceanic languages of

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of Port Moresby (Capital of Papua New Guinea). It is a simplified version of ...

Vanuatu Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (french: link=no, République de Vanuatu; bi, Ripablik blong Vanuatu), is an island country located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is east of no ...

, the

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its capita ...

, and

Micronesia Micronesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, consisting of about 2,000 small islands in the western Pacific Ocean. It has a close shared cultural history with three other island regions: the Philippines to the west, Polynesia to the east, and ...

are SVO, or verb-medial, languages. SOV, or verb-final, word order is considered to be typologically unusual for Austronesian languages, and is only found in some Oceanic languages of New Guinea and to a more limited extent, the Solomon Islands. This is because SOV word order is very common in some non-Austronesian

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 ...

in contact with Oceanic languages. In turn, most

Polynesian languages The Polynesian languages form a genealogical group of languages, itself part of the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian family. There are 38 Polynesian languages, representing 7 percent of the 522 Oceanic languages, and 3 percent of the Austron ...

, and several languages of

New Caledonia ) , anthem = "" , image_map = New Caledonia on the globe (small islands magnified) (Polynesia centered).svg , map_alt = Location of New Caledonia , map_caption = Location of New Caledonia , mapsize = 290px , subdivision_type = Sovereign st ...

, have the VSO word order. Whether Proto-Oceanic had SVO or VSO is still debatable.

Lexicon

Since the mid-1990s, reconstructing the

lexicon A lexicon is the vocabulary of a language or branch of knowledge (such as nautical or medical). In linguistics, a lexicon is a language's inventory of lexemes. The word ''lexicon'' derives from Koine Greek language, Greek word (), neuter of () ...

of Proto-Oceanic has been the object of the ''Oceanic Lexicon Project'', by scholars

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 ...

, Malcolm Ross and Meredith Osmond. This encyclopedic project has produced 5 volumes so far, available in open access. In addition,

Robert Blust Robert A. Blust (; ; May 9, 1940 – January 5, 2022) was an American linguist who worked in several areas, including historical linguistics, lexicography and ethnology. He was Professor of Linguistics at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa. Blus ...

also includes Proto-Oceanic in his ''Austronesian Comparative Dictionary'' (abbr. ACD).

Animal names

Selected reconstructed Proto-Oceanic terms of various animals from Blust's ACD: ;Fishes : ;Birds : ;Other animals :

Plant names

Pawley and Ross (2006)

Reconstructed Proto-Oceanic terms for horticulture and food plants (other than coconuts): ;

Tuber Tubers are a type of enlarged structure used as storage organs for nutrients in some plants. They are used for the plant's perennation (survival of the winter or dry months), to provide energy and nutrients for regrowth during the next growin ...

s and their culture: : ; Bananas: : ;Other food plants: : ;Gardening practices: :

Ross (2008)

Reconstructed plant terms from Malcolm Ross (2008):Ross, Malcolm. Concluding notes, 427-436. In Ross, Pawley, Osmond, Meredith (2008). ;Proto-Oceanic plant terms inherited from

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 ...

Proto-Malayo-Polynesian Proto-Malayo-Polynesian (PMP) is the reconstructed ancestor of the Malayo-Polynesian languages, which is by far the largest branch (by current speakers) of the Austronesian language family. Proto-Malayo-Polynesian is ancestral to all Austronesi ...

(65 reconstructions) : ;Proto-Oceanic plant terms inherited from Proto- Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian (11 reconstructions) : ;Proto-Oceanic plant terms inherited from Proto- Eastern Malayo-Polynesian (4 reconstructions) : ;Reconstructed terms with no external cognates ;Proto-Oceanic plant terms with no known non-Oceanic cognates (97 reconstructions) : ;Proto- Western Oceanic plant terms with no known external cognates (22 reconstructions) : ;Proto- Eastern Oceanic plant terms with no known external cognates (15 reconstructions) : ;Proto- Remote Oceanic plant terms with no known external cognates (6 reconstructions) :

Blust and Trussel (2020)

Selected reconstructed Proto-Oceanic terms of various plants from the ''Austronesian Comparative Dictionary'': :

Example sentences

From Lynch, Ross, and Crowley (2002):

Notes

References

* * * * * * {{Refend
''The lexicon of Proto Oceanic: The culture and environment of ancestral Oceanic society''
Volume 3
Plants
2008. Pacific Linguistics 599

External links

(by John Bowden)
''The Oceanic Lexicon Project''
a research project by

, Malcolm Ross and Meredith Osmond. Oceanic languages

Oceanic Oceanic may refer to: *Of or relating to the ocean *Of or relating to Oceania **Oceanic climate **Oceanic languages **Oceanic person or people, also called "Pacific Islander(s)" Places * Oceanic, British Columbia, a settlement on Smith Island, ...