The reconstruction of proto-Malayo-Javanic: an appreciation

Abstract

In 1965 Isidore Dyen published a lexicostatistical classification of some 245 Austronesian languages — the most ambitious undertaking of its kind ever attempted. The purpose of this classification was to specify, in accordance with an implicit family tree model of linguistic differen- differentiation, the hierarchy of pairings between all languages and language tiation, groups in the Austronesian family. By definition the structure of the resulting dendrogram was taken to mirror the history of language splits from the break-up of the most remotely reconstructible ancestor (Proto-Austronesian) to the attested languages. The problem confronted was thus the traditional problem of subgrouping in comparative linguistics. The method employed, however, was one only recently developed by Swadesh (1950, 1955), and this study inevitably became an important test not only of the correctness of received views on Austronesian sub- subgrouping, but of the reliability of lexicostatistics itself.