See you for the Binalot Talk on 14th February, 12:00pm. Vincent Christopher A. Santiago of the Department of Linguistics, University of the Philippines will give a talk titled 'What Can Historical Linguists Learn from Archaeologists?: Some Reflections from Teaching Lingg 150'.

This session is onsite only.

Abstract

In the semesters I was assigned to teach the undergraduate course Linggwistiks 150 - Ang Familya ng mga Wikang Ostronesya [The Austronesian Language Family], I have repeatedly caught myself asking, "What do the archaeologists, anthropologists, and geneticists think about this?" or "Are there recent findings outside our home discipline that will support or corroborate this migration pattern or language distribution?". It is in the spirit of interdisciplinarity and dialogue that I take stock of some of these lingering issues from our side of the fence. Were the Pre-Austronesian populations really mostly foragers and hunter-gatherers? Did Austronesian language speakers migrate one fell swoop into the Philippine archipelago? What motivated these communities to migrate in the first place? Is there archaeological evidence for later migrations and back-migrations such as those of the Greater Central Philippine language communities? Perhaps some of these questions are already "case closed" for archaeology.  Others might remain unanswered or unexplored. What do we do when our respective discoveries yield discordant narratives?