Abstract
IN this volume, Dr. Macdonald sets forth the proposition that the Oceanic languages originated in the Arabian peninsula, and are thus cognate with the Semitic tongues. The primitive Oceanic he regards as a sister language of Arabic, Himyaritic, Ethiopic, Assyrian, Phoenician, Hebrew, and Aramaic, and Efate, Samoan, Malagasy, Malay, as cousins of the modern Semitic dialects. He regards the people speaking the Oceanic languages in Madagascar, the Malay Archipelago, Melanesia, and Polynesia as one great, though diversified, race or people, and the languages themselves as constituting one great family. This unity of race is, however, negatived by the known ethnological data.
The Oceanic Languages: their Grammatical Structure, Vocabulary, and Origin.
By Dr. D. Macdonald. Pp. xv + 352. (London: Henry Frowde, 1907.) Price 10s. 6d. net.
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R., S. The Oceanic Languages: their Grammatical Structure, Vocabulary, and Origin . Nature 77, 460 (1908). https://doi.org/10.1038/077460a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/077460a0
