Work

Kusunda: An Indo-Pacific language in Nepal

Year: 2004

Type: article

Abstract: The Kusunda people of central Nepal have long been regarded as a relic tribe of South Asia. They are, or were until recently, seminomadic hunter-gatherers, living in jungles and forests, with a language that shows no similarities to surrounding languages. They are often described as shorter and darker than neighboring tribes. Our research indicates that the Kusunda language is a member of the Indo-Pacific family. This is a surprising finding inasmuch as the Indo-Pacific family is located on New Guinea and surrounding islands. The possibility that Kusunda is a remnant of the migration that led to the initial peopling of New Guinea and Australia warrants additional investigation from both a linguistic and genetic perspective.

Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0400233101

Authors: Paul Whitehouse, Timothy Usher, Merritt Ruhlen, William S.-Y. Wang

Institutions: Santa Fe Institute, Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica, University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University

Language: English

Topic: Linguistics and language evolution

Subfield: Language and Linguistics

Field: Arts and Humanities

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: green

OpenAlex ID: W2025866341

FWCI: 9.694

Cites: 9

Cited by: 37

Related to: 10