The Reef Islands – Santa Cruz languages (usually shortened to Reefs – Santa Cruz, abbreviated RSC) are a branch 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 ...

comprising the languages of the

Santa Cruz Islands The Santa Cruz Islands form an archipelago in Temotu Province, Solomon Islands. They lie approximately to the southeast of the Solomon Islands (archipelago), Solomon Islands archipelago, just north of the archipelago of Vanuatu and are con ...

and Reef Islands: * Äiwoo (also known as ''Reefs'') *languages of the island of

Nendö Nendö is the largest of the Santa Cruz Islands, located in the Temotu Province, Temotu province of Solomon Islands. The island is also known as Santa Cruz, Nendo, Ndeni, Nitendi or Ndende. The name ''Santa Cruz'' was given to the island in ...

(Santa Cruz): ** Nanggu (also known as ''Engdewu'') ** Natügu ** Nalögo ** Noipä (Noipx)

Background

The debate in Oceanic linguistics dated from the Second International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics in 1978, where two opposing papers were presented. Peter Lincoln argued that the Reefs – Santa Cruz languages were Oceanic, while

Stephen Wurm Stephen Adolphe Wurm (, ; 19 August 1922 – 24 October 2001) was a Hungarian-born Australian linguist. Early life Wurm was born in Budapest, the second child to the German-speaking Adolphe Wurm and the Hungarian-speaking Anna Novroczky. ...

argued that they were

Papuan languages The Papuan languages are the non- Austronesian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea, as well as neighbouring islands in Indonesia, Solomon Islands, and East Timor. It is a strictly geographical grouping, and does not imply ...

Classification

These languages were only definitively classified as part of the

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, ...

subgroup of the

Austronesian Austronesian may refer to: *The Austronesian languages *The historical Austronesian peoples The Austronesian people, sometimes referred to as Austronesian-speaking peoples, are a large group of peoples who have settled in Taiwan, maritime Sout ...

family after a series of papers that refuted the three major arguments for classifying them as either primarily

or at least heavily influenced by a Papuan substrate. * Malcolm Ross and Åshild Næss (2007) demonstrated regular sound correspondences between the reconstructed ancestor

Proto-Oceanic Proto-Oceanic (abbreviated as POc) is a proto-language that comparative linguistics, historical linguists since Otto Dempwolff have reconstructed as the hypothetical common ancestor of the Oceanic languages, Oceanic subgroup of the Austronesian ...

and RSC languages. Among other changes, RSC languages are characterized by a pervasive syncope of vowels and truncation of syllables. *Åshild Næss (2006) showed that the "multiple noun classes" in RSC do not resemble Papuan-style

gender Gender is the range of social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral aspects of being a man (or boy), woman (or girl), or third gender. Although gender often corresponds to sex, a transgender person may identify with a gender other tha ...

systems, but do have parallels in other Oceanic languages of nearby

Vanuatu Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (; ), is an island country in Melanesia located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is east of northern Australia, northeast of New Caledonia, east o ...

. *Åshild Næss and Brenda H. Boerger (2008) showed that the complex verbal structures of RSC are derived by normal erosion of verb

morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines *Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts *Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies, ...

and

grammaticalization Grammaticalization (also known as grammatization or grammaticization) is a linguistic process in which words change from representing objects or actions to serving grammatical functions. Grammaticalization can involve content words, such as noun ...

of verb serialization commonly found in many Oceanic languages, and thus do not reflect a Papuan substrate. *William James Lackey and Brenda H. Boerger (2021) revises the reconstruction made by Ross and Næss (2008), and outlines in detail some regular correspondences between RSC and Proto-Oceanic consonants that were overlooked, such as ''*s'' > ''t'' (and later ''t'' > ''s'' before /i/). They also conclude that the truncation of syllables in Proto-RSC was primarily driven by stress: words that contained a Proto-Oceanic final consonant, being

oxytone In linguistics, an oxytone (; from the , ', 'sharp-sounding') is a word with the stress on the last syllable, such as the English words ''correct'' and ''reward''. It contrasts with a paroxytone, stressed on the penultimate (second-last) syll ...

, preserved their final syllable; likewise, syncope (word-medially) took place if the word originally ended in a final consonant, or was trisyllabic. Ross and Næss (2007) offer a retrospective conclusion: :How then did it come about that Stephen Wurm thought the RSC eefs – Santa Cruzlanguages were Papuan? In small measure because the reconstruction of POc had in the 1970s not progressed to where it is today. In larger measure because the typological features he found in the RSC languages had yet to be documented in other Oceanic languages. And because the RSC languages had undergone phonological changes which rendered some cognates unrecognizable and led eventually to the replacement of others.

Background

Classification

References

Further reading