Chapter 11. Language, Society, and Culture in the Pacific Context

Abstract

Westerners often evaluate people and their societies on the basis of their technology. People without advanced technology are considered primitive not just technologically, but intellectually as well. Linguists studying Australian and Pacific languages are often asked how many words there are in those languages. Underlying such a question is the assumption that such “primitive” people must speak simple languages: “By and large, the white population of present-day Australia has little knowledge of the structure or nature of Aboriginal Australian languages. Moreover, they have serious misconceptions about them. If you strike up a conversation with even well-educated white Australians you may hear that ... ‘[Aboriginal languages] have only a few score words—names for common objects’” (Dixon 1980, 4). Nothing could, as we have seen, be further from the truth. The grammars of Pacific languages are by no means simple or primitive. How do Pacific languages stand in terms of lexicon?