Austronesian–Ongan languages: Difference between revisions

|acceptance=widely rejected

|region=Southeast Asia, East Asia, the Pacific and Madagascar

|familycolor=Andamanese

|child2=[[Jarawa language (Andaman Islands)|Jarawa]]

|child3=[[Austronesian languages|Austronesian]]

'''Austronesian–Ongan''' is a proposed connection between the [[Ongan languages|Ongan]] and [[Austronesian languages|Austronesian]] [[language family|language families]], proposed by [[Juliette Blevins]] (2007). Ongan is a small family of two attested languages in the [[Andaman Islands]], while Austronesian is one of the largest language families in the world, with a thousand languages spread across the Pacific. The proposed connection has been rejected by other linguists.

The proposal of a genealogical connection between Austronesian and Ongan has not been well received by other linguists. [[George van Driem|Van Driem]] (2011) considers Blevins' evidence as "not compelling", although he leaves the possibility open that some resemblances could be the result of contact/borrowing, a position also held by Hoogervorst (2012).<ref>{{cite book |last=van Driem |first=George |year=2011 |chapter=Rice and the Austroasiatic and Hmong-Mien homelands |chapter-url=https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sian-Halcrow/publication/256442016_Halcrow_S_E_and_N_Tayles_2011_Human_diversity_in_mainland_Southeast_Asia_a_view_from_bioarchaeology_N_Enfield_ed_Dynamics_of_human_diversity_in_mainland_Southeast_Asia_Wenner-Gren_International_Sympos/links/00b7d528a94b2323cf000000/Halcrow-S-E-and-N-Tayles-2011-Human-diversity-in-mainland-Southeast-Asia-a-view-from-bioarchaeology-N-Enfield-ed-Dynamics-of-human-diversity-in-mainland-Southeast-Asia-Wenner-Gren-International-Sympo.pdf#page=368 |accessdate= 13 November 2021 |editor=N.J Enfield |title=Dynamics of human diversity: the case of mainland Southeast Asia |location=Canberra |publisher=Pacific Linguistics}}</ref><ref>{{cite thesis |last=Hoogervorst |first=Tom |year=2012 |title=Southeast Asia in the ancient Indian Ocean world: combining historical linguistic and archaeological approaches |type=PhD thesis |publisher=University of Oxford |url=https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:b8b47816-7184-42ab-958e-026bc3431ea3 |accessdate=13 November 2021 |quote=Nevertheless, it is conceivable that some of the given forms are genuinely related, though better explained as loans than common inheritance (p. 91).}}</ref> [[Robert Blust|Blust]] (2014) argues that Blevins' conclusions are not supported by her data, and that of her first 25 reconstructions, none are reproducible using the comparative method. Blust concludes that the grammatical comparison does not hold up, and also cites non-linguistic (such as cultural, archaeological, and biological) evidence against Blevins' hypothesis.<ref>Blust, Robert (2014). "Some Recent Proposals Concerning the Classification of the Austronesian Languages", ''Oceanic Linguistics'' 53:2:300&ndash;391. "To put it bluntly, the AON hypothesis is a castle built on sand, an elaborate illusion fostered by the misplaced hope that a major discovery has been made that somehow eluded the investigations of all other scholars."</ref>