Origins of the Filipinos and Their Languages

Introduction

The origins of the Filipinos and their languages are still controversial.
There are two opposing hypotheses regarding the area of origin and the routes to the Philippines.
Both hypotheses agree that the major languages and dialects spoken in the Philippines during the 15th century were part of the Austronesian Super Family.
The two best-known hypotheses in the Philippines are those of Peter Bellwood and Wilhelm G. Solheim II.
Solheim's hypothesis started developing over 40 years ago, while Bellwood's is more recent and has gained greater acceptance outside the Philippines.

Bellwood's Hypothesis

Proto-Austronesian originated in eastern South China, opposite Taiwan.
Maritime Chinese brought Proto-Austronesian to Taiwan around 7000 years ago, along with rice agriculture.
After about 2000 years, distinct Austronesian languages developed in Taiwan.
People speaking one unknown Austronesian language moved to northern Luzon, bringing rice agriculture.
The rice agriculture led to rapid population growth and the absorption of hunter-gathering populations in the Philippines.
The Austronesian speakers moved south through the Philippines and reached southern Mindanao by about 4500 years ago.
From southern Mindanao, they spread south and east and west.
The Austronesian branch that developed between Taiwan and the Philippines became the Malayo-Polynesian language family.

Solheim's Hypothesis

Solheim's hypothesis is more complex.
It involves exploratory maritime movement in many directions over different routes.
Remote origins date back over 50,000 years ago from coastal present-day eastern Viet Nam and South China.
Pre-Austronesian development began in the general area of the Bismark Islands, south and east of Mindanao.
Proto-Austronesian developed as a trade language among maritime boat people sailing throughout the South China Sea, including to Japan and Korea, and much of Island Southeast Asia.
The Malayo-Polynesian Language Family developed after about 4000 years ago from southern Mindanao.
They spread east into the Pacific islands and west to Madagascar around 2000 years ago.
The Philippines was central to much of this development from about 6000 years ago.

Two General Articles

Solheim wrote two general articles about the prehistory of the Philippines and its relationship with surrounding areas (Solheim 1999, Solheim 1981).
Since then, there has been more fieldwork and publication relevant to this paper.
At the time of writing, Solheim did not consider it important to present the differing interpretation involving the origins and spread of Austronesian languages.

Differing Hypotheses

There are two differing hypotheses on the origins of the Filipinos and their languages.
Peter Bellwood includes the Philippines in his wider-scale hypothesis on the origin and spread of Austronesian languages and peoples.
Bellwood does not present an explanation for the Philippines as a specific topic.
Robert Blust (1984-1985) and Lawrence Reid (1982) agreed with Bellwood that a Pre-Austronesian form was in South China and brought by boat to Taiwan where Austronesian developed into its original form.
They also agreed with Peter Bellwood (1984-1985), following Shutler and Marck (1975), that Austronesian was taken south from Taiwan to the northern Philippines, spread south through the Philippines, and from southern Mindanao spread both west and east.
The opinions of all these authors have evolved since these early statements and I have been unable to keep up with their evolving interpretations.

Malayo-Polynesian Development

Solheim quotes himself stating that, if he understands Bellwood correctly, the main Austronesian stem evolved in the Philippines into Malayo-Polynesian and branched into many further Malayo-Polynesian languages in the Philippines and as it moved both west and east from the southern Philippines.
There is no Philippine language suggested as the ancestor of the Malayo-Polynesian languages of the Philippines and Island Southeast Asia.
No language in Taiwan has been considered as Pre- or Proto-Malayo-Polynesian.
According to Bellwood's theory, Malayo-Polynesian must have developed directly out of one of the Taiwan Austronesian languages as soon as its speakers reached the Philippines, which Solheim finds improbable.

Austronesian Terminology

Solheim emphasizes that "Austronesian" is a linguistic term and the name of a super language family, not a name for a people or a culture.
The phrase "Austronesian speaking people" should be used to refer to people who speak an Austronesian language.
Genetically, the Nusantao have become a mixture of many different peoples.

Solheim's Interpretation

Solheim presents his interpretation of archaeological, linguistic, and genetic data for the origin of the Filipinos and their languages.
Filipinos and most peoples of Island and coastal Mainland Southeast Asia were a maritime-oriented population.
The formation of this population goes back at least 50,000 years, long before the development of Austronesian languages, and took place on the Southeast Asian mainland.
Maritime development is indicated by the first people going to Australia from Southeast Asia over 50,000 years ago.
At that time, the sea level was much lower, but it still would have been necessary to cross water out of sight of land for several days between the nearest Indonesian islands to Australia.
Two-way contact must have existed for some time.
This suggests that rafts with some sort of centerboard for directional control were in use at that time.

Boat Invention

There is no archaeological indication how early small boats came into use.
Solheim suspects they were invented and first in use well up one or more of the major rivers of southeastern China and/or northern Viet Nam around 13,000 years ago or earlier.
The first, crude, heavy earthenware pottery known not only in eastern Asia but in the world starts showing up at about this time in four widely separated areas: Siberia, Japan, southern China, and northern Viet Nam.
The knowledge of how to make this crude pottery must have been spread down and up major rivers and along sea coasts in small boats with or without single outriggers.
Some of the islands of Japan were connected to the mainland at this time, as was Taiwan.
For an unknown reason, these early sailor-potters did not stop in Taiwan, or at least their rare, early sites have not yet been found.

Outrigger Canoes

Solheim hypothesizes that single-outriggers for these small boats had been invented sometime between 13,000 and 10,000 years ago.
Contact between central, coastal Viet Nam and the Bismark Islands by around 10,000 years ago is indicated by the spread of arboriculture and some of the plants involved.
Several types of shell artifacts have been recovered in the general Bismark area around this time and earlier and appear to have spread to the west at a somewhat later date.
Sailing from Mainland Southeast Asia to the Bismark area and south to the Solomons would have been possible with single-outrigger canoes.
Moving out into the Pacific over much wider ocean distances probably needed larger, double-outrigger canoes.
It has been hypothesized that the double-outrigger was invented somewhere along the east coast of Viet Nam at an unknown date, allowing long-distance travel out into the Pacific.

Taiwan and Philippines

Solheim hypothesizes that this was happening to Taiwan, the Philippines, into western Micronesia, and back out to the Bismark area by 6000 years ago using double-outriggers, larger canoes, but without bringing the knowledge of pottery manufacture.
This would have then enabled them to extend their explorations further to the south and east into the Pacific.
During this time, Palawan and Mindanao would have been in contact with coastal Viet Nam and South China, presumably not bringing in agriculture.
However, it is possible that arboriculture was brought to the Philippines during this time, both from the west and the east.
Archaeological sites in western Palawan show contact with Viet Nam, and there was probably contact between coastal South China and coastal northern Luzon, the Babuyan and Batanes Islands, and Taiwan.

The Nusantao

Solheim calls these maritime boat people the Nusantao.
The importance of the maritime organization of many people in Island Southeast Asia first came to Solheim in 1963 (Solheim 1963:258).
His concept of the Nusantao and its associated Nusantao Maritime Trading and Communication Network (NMTCN) has evolved considerably over time since he first proposed it (Solheim 1975:158).
Solheim's book on the Nusantao (Solheim ND) explains the evolution of the two terms in detail.
The Nusantao are defined as a prehistoric, maritime-oriented people along with their cultural descendants who have maintained their cultural orientation until today or the recent past in many coastal and island areas in Southeast Asia, coastal China and north to Japan and Korea, and Oceania.
The concept of the Nusantao and their expansion is useful in understanding the widespread dissemination of particular inter-related languages and items of material culture, even though none of these actually define the Nusantao.
It is also of major importance for explaining the origins of the Philippines and of their languages.

Nusantao Expansion

In the beginning, the Nusantao were primarily fishermen and expanded their territory for fishing out of curiosity looking for new fishing areas (Solheim 1981: 33-34).
Coming into contact with new people and settlements, they began to add trading of materials available in one area but not in another.
This led to a relatively informal, long-distance trade that also involved long-distance communication of ideas, knowledge, genes, and language in the form of a trade language.
This trading system helps explain why so many forms of stone artifacts, ornaments, and patterns found on pottery were shared over such a wide territory in the absence of migrations of people and in an area where there were differing cultures.
Solheim's concept of the Nusantao shifted from an all-encompassing "Austronesian speaking people" to a maritime-oriented trading people probably speaking an Austronesian language.
In 1985, Solheim redefined Nusantao as natives of Southeast Asia, and their descendants, with a maritime-oriented culture from their beginnings, these beginnings probably in southeastern Island Southeast Asia around 5000 B.C. or possibly somewhat earlier.
Most of the Nusantao probably spoke a pre- or related Austronesian language, but there may well have been at times some that spoke a non-Austronesian language. At the time of this redefinition I did not consider non-maritime Austronesian speakers as Nusantao.
The Nusantao and the non-maritime-Austronesian speakers mixed genetically, culturally, and linguistically. Their genetic ancestry varied from time to time and place to place to include Southern Mongoloid and Melanesoid.
Through time, as the Nusantao expanded their fishing and trading areas, there was also a gradual expansion in the variety of maritime orientations.

Maritime Communication

Solheim agrees with Wolters (1999) about the importance of maritime communication for Southeast Asia.
The sea provides an obvious geographical framework for discussing possibilities of region-wide historical themes.
The sea facilitates communication between peoples.
The Southeast Asian seas can be characterized as a "veritable Mediterranean" (Coèdes, 1968:3-2).
The single ocean from the coasts of eastern Africa and western Asia to the coastal line of the Indian subcontinent and on to China, the Pacific islands, Japan and Korea was a significant fact of life in earlier Southeast Asia.
The concept of "heterarchy" in contradistinction to "hierarchy" is relevant in Southeast Asian prehistory.
"Heterarchy" signifies societies that exemplify cultural pluralism, indigenous economies, flexible social status systems, and alliance formation.
The importance to the overlord of the mandala of being up to date and the importance of rapid information dissemination over Southeast Asia.
The NMTCN was the prehistoric and historic equivalent of the present day e-mail network, providing up-to-date information on all subjects of interest to its members.

Nusantao Maritime Trade

Solheim proposed the term Nusantao in 1975 to refer to people of the southern islands who spoke Austronesian.
The term has two uses: a general term referring to a maritime-oriented people who originated in eastern Island Southeast Asia and along the southern coast of the South China Sea at the end of the Pleistocene, and a specific term referring to those who specialized in maritime trade (The Nusantao Maritime Trading and Communication Network).
This network ultimately spread to wherever Austronesian languages are spoken today, including the coast of China, Korea, Japan, and probably the Americas.

Knowledge of Land and Sea

The Nusantao who were maritime people were knowledgeable about life on the land as well as on the sea.
After arboriculture, horticulture and/or agriculture were known these people expanding into the Pacific always had a base on land.

Prehistory according to Disciplines

Archaeology, genetics, and linguistics do not present the same picture of prehistoric and historic development and expansion, though there must be some correlation.
Very little research has been done on the detailed genetics of the Philippine people, and the research done with Negrito groups has only shown that they are not closely related to each other, rather they are more closely related to their near neighbors over time.
Solheim supposes that the ancestors of the Negritos were the same as of the general Southeast Asian populations 20,000 years ago and that they evolved very rapidly to their distinguishable appearance when they started living in very similar ecological situations in the rainforest.
Linguistics has been more intensively studied, particularly by the Summer Institute of Linguistics.

Austronesian Routes

Gaillard and Mallari (2004) have provided eight different maps showing proposed routes by different authors of Austronesian coming to the Philippines.
A major portion of each route had to come by water.
Wolters (179-180) mentioned that the boat was conventionally used in island Southeast Asia as the metaphor for emphasizing the meaning and importance of an ordered social group.
The Barangay or balangay (meaning boat) was a word known by the first Spaniards to come to the Philippines.
When Antonio Pigafetta went ashore to talk with the chief of Limaswa, they met in a boat on the shore. When they arrived at Luzon they found that balangay was also used for the smallest political unit of Tagalog society.
The word barangay calls attention to two important characteristics of the sixteenth-century Philippines: dependence on boats and highly localized government.
Itbayat, the most northerly of the Batanes Islands north of Luzon has, a number of different words for boat.
Maria Mangahas reported that an elderly informant on Itbayat told her that one of the words for boat (vanua) also means homeland.
Its cognate words vanua, banua, benoa, and fanua all denote the concept of village, port, town, house, land, country, cosmos, and even boat.

Trade Languages

In their early movements by water before 5000 B.C. Solheim hypothesized that the Nusantao developed a trading/ communication network between the northern Philippines, Taiwan, and the coast of South China and northern Viet Nam.
It was the trading people making up this network who helped develop Austronesian out of Pre- and Proto-Austronesian, as a lingua franca by which they were able to communicate among themselves and the peoples with whom they traded in the Nusantao network.
Linguists agree that a trade language must start with some regularly defined language that has evolved with admixtures of other languages.
Solheim agrees with this, but says that Austronesian had its beginnings, as Pre-Austronesian, by around 12,000 B.P., making its single linguistic family origin undiscoverable.

Origins of Pre-Austronesian

The route that Solheim has proposed for bringing the Austronesian languages and its speakers to the Philippines is very complicated and actually is many different routes.
It is necessary to go back to the beginnings of Pre-Austronesian.
Solheim has proposed that the origin of Pre-Austronesian was in the Bismarcks in northwestern Melanesia (Wallacia could be considered its homeland) and then Proto-Austronesian developed among the sailors and their families of the NMTCN in their communication and trading back again to the west through much of coastal eastern Indonesia and the Philippines, and along the coast of eastern Viet Nam and South China.
This communication brought with it the knowledge of the Tridacna shell adze and other shell artifacts and ornaments.
As the Nusantao came in contact with Proto-Austro-Tai speaking people along the coasts of South China and northern Viet Nam and up the major rivers of this area Proto-Austronesian (still a trade language) further evolved.
The people moving from South China to Taiwan about 7000 B.P. would still have been speaking Proto-Austronesian, and there it evolved into the several different Taiwan-Austronesian languages.

Pawley and Green

Pawley and Green (1973:35-36) described the cultural content of Proto-Austronesian.
They had a mixed economy based on agriculture and fishing, supplemented by hunting and arboriculture.
Cultivated crops included taro, yams, banana, sugarcane, breadfruit, coconut, the aroids Cytosperma and Alacasia, sago, and (probably) rice.
They sailed outrigger canoes.
Their tools were of stone, wood, and shell.
The presence of shell tools was at least one element of the culture of the people speaking Proto-Austronesian that had been added as a result of their presence in the Wallacia/Bismarks area.
The use of shell for tools in this area goes back before 12,000 BP.

Austric Development

Austro-Asiatic and Austronesian evolved out of Austric.
Austric languages were spoken in greater Southeast Asia before the rising of sea levels to present-day levels.
With the rise of the sea level, the Austronesian languages developed in the newly formed islands of the east, and Austro-Asiatic developed on the mainland.

Summary and Conclusions

The Philippines is within the areas of development and movement of all levels of evolution of the languages from Proto-Austronesian into Malayo-Polynesian.
Development of Pre-Austronesian could have included southeastern Mindanao.
Very little archaeology has been done throughout this area in recent years.
We do not really know whether Taiwan might have been involved in the development of Proto-Austronesian.
Several different Austronesian languages evolved there, presumably out of Proto-Austronesian.
There is no indication that Pre- or Proto-Malayo-Polynesian were present there.
Amis may have moved north from the Philippines at a relatively early date.
The only definite relationships between the Philippines and Taiwan are between Itbayat and Botel Tobago, where the ancestors of those living on Botel Tobago came from Itbayat.
The Philippine languages are related in an ancestral way with all the other Western Malayo-Polynesian languages.
The trading relationships of the NMTCN go in every which direction.
The Filipinos were in communication directly and down the line with all coastal areas of Southeast Asia and to some extent up the major rivers to the interior, and that they are a genetic mixture that would result from these contacts.
At the earlier times of the NMTCN, the Philippines were pretty much at the center of this network.
All native Southeast Asians are closely related culturally, genetically, and to a lesser degree linguistically.

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