Vaeakau-Taumako, also known as Pileni, is a Polynesian Outlier language spoken in the Reef and Duff Islands in the Solomon Islands' Temotu Province. This is an area of great linguistic diversity and long-standing language contact which has had far-reaching effects on the linguistic situation. Historically, speakers of Vaeakau-Taumako were shipbuilders and navigators who made trade voyages throughout the area, bringing them into constant contact with speakers of the Reefs-Santa Cruz, Utupua and Vanikoro languages. The latter languages are only distantly related to Vaeakau-Taumako, making up an only recently identified first-order subgroup of Oceanic. Polynesian speakers first arrived in the area some 700-1000 years ago from the core Polynesian areas to the east. While today most intra-group communication takes place in Solomon Islands Pijin, traditionally the situation was one of extensive multilingualism, and this has left profound traces in the grammar of Vaeakau-Taumako, which shows a number of structural properties not known from other Polynesian languages. A Grammar of Vaeakau-Taumako is the most comprehensive grammar of any Polynesian Outlier to date, and the first full-length grammar of any language of Temotu Province. Based on extensive fieldwork, it is structured as a reference grammar dealing with all aspects of language structure, from phonology to discourse organization, and including a selection of glossed texts. It will be of interest to typologists, Oceanic linguists, and researchers interested in language contact. “/P>

Originally published in 1970, this book represents a unique study of beliefs and ritual practices in a pagan religion, and of the processes by which a transformation to Christianity took place. Christianity came to the major islands of Polynesia nearly two centuries ago, and within a couple of generations, the traditional pagan religion had disappeared. Only a few remote islands such as Tikopia preserved their ancient cults. Over eighty years ago, the author first observed and took part in these pagan rites, and on later visits he studied the change from paganism to Christian faith. Unique in its rich documentation, this book presents a systematic account of the traditional beliefs in gods and spirits and of the way in which these were fused with the social and political structure. The causes and dramatic results of the conversion to Christianity are then described, ending with an examination of the religious situation at the time of the book’s original publication. The book is both a contribution to anthropology and a case study in religious history. It completes the major series of studies of Tikopia society for which the author is famous. It gives the first full account of a Polynesian religious system in a state of change.

Every language has been influenced in some way by other languages. In many cases, this influence is reflected in words which have been absorbed from other languages as the names for newer items or ideas, such as perestroika, manga, or intifada (from Russian, Japanese, and Arabic respectively). In other cases, the influence of other languages goes deeper, and includes the addition of new sounds, grammatical forms, and idioms to the pre-existing language. For example, English's structure has been shaped in such a way by the effects of Norse, French, Latin, and Celtic--though English is not alone in its openness to these influences. Any features can potentially be transferred from one language to another if the sociolinguistic and structural circumstances allow for it. Further, new languages--pidgins, creoles, and mixed languages--can come into being as the result of language contact. In thirty-three chapters, The Oxford Handbook of Language Contact examines the various forms of contact-induced linguistic change and the levels of language which have provided instances of these influences. In addition, it provides accounts of how language contact has affected some twenty languages, spoken and signed, from all parts of the world. Chapters are written by experts and native-speakers from years of research and fieldwork. Ultimately, this Handbook provides an authoritative account of the possibilities and products of contact-induced linguistic change.

First published in 1939 and long out of print, this book remains unique as the only full and detailed account by a social anthropologist of a complete pagan Polynesian ritual cycle. This new single-volume edition omits some of the Tikopia vernacular texts, but includes a new theoretical introduction; postscripts have also been supplied to some of the chapters comparing the performances of 1928-9 with those witnessed by Professor Firth on his second visit to Tikopia in 1952. There is a specially written Epilogue on the final eclipse of the traditional ritual, based on a third visit by the author during the summer of 1966.

"Oceanian ceramic cultures making earthenware pottery spread during the past 3500 years through a dozen major island groups spanning 6000 km of the tropical Pacific Ocean from western Micronesia to western Polynesia. Island potters mixed sand as temper into clay bodies during ceramic manufacture. The nature of island sands is governed by the geotectonics of hotspot chains, island arcs, subduction zones, backarc basins, and remnant arcs as well as by sedimentology. Because small islands with bedrock exposures of restricted character are virtual point sources of sand, many tempers are diagnostic of specific islands. Petrographic study of temper sands in thin section allows distinction between indigenous pottery and exotic pottery transported from elsewhere. Study of 2223 prehistoric Oceanian potsherds from 130 islands and island clusters indicates the nature of Oceanian temper types and documents 105 cases of interisland transport of ceramics over distances typically