Languages in Deep Time: the Papuan languages of Island Melanesia and their wider relationships

This project will investigate the origins of the Papuan languages of Island Melanesia, as well as their relationships to the Austronesian languages that surround them. The methodological approach represents a major innovation for the study of linguistic relatedness, including the application of phylogenetic methods from evolutionary biology to language typology data in a linguistically sophisticated way. We believe this approach will allow us to get beyond the earliest dates of the comparative method in a scientifically rigorous way, as well as allowing more detailed reconstruction of subsequent contact history.