Borrowing: A Pacific perspective
Jan Tent and Paul Geraghty (eds.)
In recent years, there has
been a resurgence of interest in linguistic borrowing, especially
with regard to its importance in the reconstruction of pre-history.
However, the general literature on borrowing has been based
on a somewhat restricted range of data, tending to concentrate
on the languages of Europe or the Americas. The Pacific has
not figured prominently in such discussions.
Linguists and anthropologists have long considered the Pacific
to be a kind of laboratory because the geographical discreteness
of its cultures allows clearer inferences to be made than
are usually possible in a continental situation. Borrowing
in the Pacific is relatively easy to identify and stratify.
Its study is, therefore, especially useful in the reconstruction
of the linguistic, social and cultural history.
The scope of this volume is not solely restricted to borrowing
in Oceanic languages, but includes two papers on borrowing
in Fiji Hindi and Fiji English. Authors have been encouraged
to address general issues of borrowing from the perspective
of data they have derived from their fieldwork, thus avoiding
the risk of producing a series of largely similar contributions.
The volume also includes a number of seminal and authoritative
papers on Pacific borrowing that have been previously published.
Published: 2003
PL 548.: ISBN 0 85883 532 0
Pages:xi + 330
Prices: Aust A$99.00 (inc. GST), Overseas
A$90.00
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