wgdavey@zianet.com

As a working hypothesis we take as a guide the general currently accepted view that modern man and modern languages originated in Africa. However, beyond this broad point of probable origin, we regard this thesis as far from proven. In particular the specifics of migration and timing appear to be very much open questions.

Nevertheless we see no reason not to begin by building on the current opinion that this migration began about 150,000 years ago and thus occurred during the latest glacial phase of the latest Ice Ages. Man then lived and migrated during this Ice Age. However he was strongly influenced by the major changes in sea level at the end of the Ice Age about 11,000 years ago. This caused flooding in many areas but was particularly striking in creating the islands of the present area of Indonesia and in separating Papua and Australia. The lands so flooded have been called Sundaland and the Sahul.

When moving out of Africa man must have moved either northward into the vast Eurasian plain that extended from the Atlantic to the Pacific or to he went to the East towards India and South Asia and beyond. The great divider was, and is, the vast Himalayan mountain block that was even more of a barrier during the Ice Age because of glaciation in that region.

From either Eurasia or South Asia man could migrate to the Americas through the general region of the north Pacific, toward and then through the area of the Bering Straits. We make no judgment on when migration occurred but we see no reason to believe that it was a single event, or that it was either exclusively by land or by sea, or that it was rigidly dependent upon the seas level. In any event it seems clear that man moved through the lands of northeast Eurasia adjacent to the northeast coast of the Pacific Ocean. We point out that in principle we do not reject alternative proposed migration routes (some of which are quite exotic) but we see no reason not to follow the more mundane Bering route as a guide.

In this regard we note in passing that it is not clear to us why Peking Man who could survive in the harsh climate of northern China as well as being able to cross into Borneo could not also have moved into the Americas.

The further migration of those who moved into South Asia was clearly complex. Here he presumably passed through the "chokepoint " between Eastern India and the rest of SEAS and may have left traces in Dravidian and/or Munda. But he may well have also entered Eastern India from the north from Eurasia and Tibet. He then presumably entered mainland South Asia where we find evidence of different peoples in the form of the Austronesian and non-Austronesian languages Munda. In addition he also moved into the many islands of the Pacific as well as the Philippines, Papua, and Australia. However, of particular significance is that he also moved northward to the Pacific Coast of Eurasia and onward to the Americas.

By contrast the early history of those who moved into Eurasia has surely been obscured by later events. The geography of the Eurasian lands does not provide the many clear "refuge areas" found in South Asia and in addition quite recent historical movements of the Indo-Europeans and the Turkic peoples have overwhelmed earlier peoples. However we perhaps see the oldest survivors at the "fringes" of Eurasia in, for example, the Basque and Finns. In addition we must recognize the probable distinctive role in movement into the Americas played by the western portion of Eurasia; it is adjacent to the northern part of the Pacific Ocean and so is called "Pacific Eurasia" in our study. Thus in Eurasia we shall consider four groups of languages, namely the Indo-Europeans, the Turkic, the possibly older languages at the fringes, and those of Pacific Eurasia. It must be noted that these "groups" are loosely defined since, for example, the Indo-Europeans include Sanscrit even though it is physically located in India.

There are over 6,000 different existing and extinct identified languages in the world. There are many books that discuss them but there are two sources that we have found to be particularly useful in describing them and placing them in context. The first is "A Guide to the World’s Languages" by Merritt Ruhlen, published by Stanford University Press in 1991 and the second is "Ethnologue, Languages of the World" published by SIL International and available on the Internet as well as in hard copy.

Because of the large number of languages we study it is valuable to group the languages in some way. We believe that this is best done by using the different regions of the physical world since the relationships between the regions and their physical characteristics must always the principal guide on migrations.

Within the various regions it is convenient to use linguistic groupings and, for example. In the Americas we follow those of Joseph Greenberg given in his "Language in the Americas", and where appropriate we generally follow the work of Ruhlen.

Our listings are given within the broad locations of Northern Eurasia (the great plain extending from Japan to Europe), the Middle East, Southern Africa, a very broad category of South East Asia (SEAS), Papua, Australia, and the Americas. Then, in each area we follow the conventional linguistics groupings where these exist.

In retrospect, after many different kinds of analysis, we see that the regions could be re-defined with some benefit. For example, our separated South Africa and Mid East could considered as one Africa, while Eurasia could be divided into Pacific or East Eurasia and the other languages of West Eurasia. Similarly SEAS could be separately listed as Mainland and Pacific Island SEAS or perhaps the almost equivalent Austronesian and non-Austronesian. However, in point of fact, such changes are not essential as we can, and have, grouped and divided the data as appropriate in our analyses.

The following figure shows these regions schematically. Here the solid lines between regions indicate some possible or probable migration routes. These are only for illustration and are not intended to exclude the many additional migration routes.

Given these points we have constructed the following simple view of the world as it may relate to our language studies.

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