Social and Political Roles of Some Languages in the Pacific Area

Abstract

The Pacific area is by far the linguistically most complex area of the world. The Pacific area proper including Australia and New Zealand, and areas immediately adjacent to it to the west, i.e. insular und continental Southeast Asia, the Philippines, Taiwan and the Japan area, contain around two thousand distinct languages with innumerable dialects of which several thousand have so far been established. The greatest concentration of these very numerous languages is in the south-western region of the Pacific area proper, in other words in the New Guinea area, Island Melanesia and continental Australia. What is referred to as New Guinea area is the region extending from the island world to the west of the New Guinea and the Solomon Islands chain as far as the Santa Cruz archipelago. The island world to the west of the New Guinea mainland as referred to includes, in the south the islands of Timor, Alor and Pantar and the islands between them and the New Guinea mainland, the island of Halmahera in the north and islands adjacent to it as well as other islands of the Maluku (Moluccas) region situated between the southern and northern islands as mentioned.