SummaryRecent genomic analyses show that the earliest peoples reaching Remote Oceania – associated with Austronesian-speaking Lapita culture – were almost completely East Asian, without detectable Papuan ancestry. Yet Papuan-related genetic ancestry is found across present-day Pacific populations, indicating that peoples from Near Oceania have played a significant – but largely unknown – ancestral role. Here, new genome-wide data from 19 South Pacific individuals provide direct evidence of a so-far undescribed Papuan expansion into Remote Oceania starting ~2,500 years before present, far earlier than previously estimated and supporting a model from historical linguistics. New genome-wide data from 27 contemporary ni-Vanuatu demonstrate a subsequent and almost complete replacement of Lapita-Austronesian by Near Oceanian ancestry. Despite this massive demographic change, incoming Papuan languages did not replace Austronesian languages. Population replacement with language continuity is extremely rare – if not unprecedented – in human history. Our analyses show that rather than one large-scale event, the process was incremental and complex, with repeated migrations and sex-biased admixture with peoples from the Bismarck Archipelago.

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Contrary to what non-practitioners might expect, the systems of phonetic notation used by linguists are highly idiosyncratic. Not only do various linguistic subfields disagree on the specific symbols they use to denote the speech sounds of languages, but also in large databases of sound inventories considerable variation can be found. Inspired by recent efforts to link cross-linguistic data with help of reference catalogues (Glottolog, Concepticon) across different resources, we present initial efforts to link different phonetic notation systems to a catalogue of speech sounds. This is achieved with the help of a database accompanied by a software framework that uses a limited but easily extendable set of non-binary feature values to allow for quick and convenient registration of different transcription systems, while at the same time linking to additional datasets with restricted inventories. Linking different transcription systems enables us to conveniently translate between different phonetic transcription systems, while linking sounds to databases allows users quick access to various kinds of metadata, including feature values, statistics on phoneme inventories, and information on prosody and sound classes. In order to prove the feasibility of this enterprise, we supplement an initial version of our cross-linguistic database of phonetic transcription systems (CLTS), which currently registers five transcription systems and links to fifteen datasets, as well as a web application, which permits users to conveniently test the power of the automatic translation across transcription systems.

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For the past fifty years, historical linguistics and archaeology have provided seemingly mutually corroboratory evidence for the settlement of east Polynesia. However, more recent findings in archaeology have shifted this relationship out of balance, calling previous conclusions into question. This paper first reviews the generally accepted archaeological and linguistic theories of east Polynesia’s settlement, then describes the recent archaeological findings, highlighting the areas where the evidence from the two disciplines is now discordant. In sections four and five, I examine the linguistic data from Eastern Polynesian languages and propose a new, contact-based model for the region. The new linguistic model ultimately demonstrates that the settlement of east Polynesia and the development of the Eastern Polynesian languages occurred in one major period of dispersal, with subsequent spheres of contact among central Polynesian communities, producing the pattern of cultural and linguistic traits we see today.