[Mihalic] More etymology

Ross Clark (FOA DALSL) r.clark at auckland.ac.nz
Sat Aug 2 10:38:19 EST 2003


----Original Message-----
From: Robin Hide [mailto:rhide at coombs.anu.edu.au]
Sent: Saturday, 2 August 2003 9:47 a.m.
To: mihalic at anu.edu.au
Subject: Re: [Mihalic] More etymology


Re: Tom Slone's posting. Just a warning that there are real risks in using
uncritically 40-50 year old sources which give botanical (or other
biological) names - taxonomy continues apace and names can change quite
rapidly. I learnt this the hard way recently when revising the Majnep and
Bulmer manuscript on Kalam animals that had been written in the 1970s - of
the 49 mammals currently recorded in the Kaironk region that were also
present in the early 1970s,  43% of the zoological names had changed since
1973!  
In short, when citing the older sources, their scientific nomenclature needs
to be checked if chains of discarded names are not to be reproduced...-..
 

Robin

Below some queries/alterations for some of Tom's entries  indicated by **.
(Incidentally, one wonders what were Lanyon-Orgil's botanical sources?)
 
[Ross Clark (FOA LING)] 
While we're on the subject of caution and of Lanyon-Orgill, I would like to
suggest that a certain degree of caution should be exercised in connection
with all the works of this author. For a documented case of out-and-out
falsification in one of his later books, see the review by Paul Geraghty in
the Journal of the Polynesian Society 92:554-9 (1983). In some cases all he
has done is published manuscripts compiled by others with his own name on
the title page. I don't have the Raluana dictionary here, so can't check the
preface etc., but it may be of this kind. He refers here and there to having
done field work in Melanesia, but I have never heard any independent
confirmation of this. I would be interested to know if any of the
participants on this list have any knowledge of his activities *apart* from
statements in his own publications. As far as the Raluana (Kuanua, Tolai)
dictionary goes -- since this language is particularly relevant to the
Mihalic project -- I haven't heard any suggestions that it is wildly
inaccurate, but would be interested in the experience of people who know the
language.

Taun (2): Mühlhäusler (unpublished) says this is from the Mioko and Malot
languages for Pometia pinnata.
** cf. Bryant Allen's comment: 
Peekel (1984: 335) glosses Pometia pinnata as ton in Kuanua, but tauan in
Patpatar and East Kara. NOTE that taun is used as the common commercial name
in English for the timber of this tree: see: Eddowes, P. J. (1977).
Commercial timbers of Papua New Guinea: their properties and uses. Port
Moresby, DPI., or French, B. R. (1986). Food Plants of Papua New Guinea: A
Compendium, Privately printed.

[Ross Clark (FOA LING)] 
Thanks, Robin! I *knew* I had heard this word used in English, but was
unable to find it in OED, Macquarie, the Aus National Dictionary (abridged
ed) or a couple of tree books I looked in. I think I will have to do another
little submission like I did for "kwila" a while ago. 
 
By the way, this tree is reconstructed as Proto-Oceanic *tawan, and the Mota
language of Vanuatu actually calls it "tawan". But Bislama uses a different
form from the same root (nandau), so I think it is not necessary to look
that far afield for the source of the TP word. 
 
Ross Clark


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