Talk:Indigenous people of New Guinea

Proposal for deletion of page and merge into Melanesia

The term "Papuan Peoples" is highly politically charged, and totally absent in all serious scholarship. Lety us avoid undue politicization and moral lecturing where possibleStarstylers (talk) 18:51, 29 July 2009 (UTC) Will tag article accordingly.

Absent in all serious scholarship? This is just not true. In fact the term "Melanesiam" is somewhat archaic (although still in use alongside Papuan). Looking at the above user's history in editing articles to do with Indonesia, I think it is more than likely it is they that are ones overly politicizing the issue. I have removed the tag. --86.168.72.216 (talk) 18:16, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Mistakes in the article

- "but this is not always an ethnic distinction, as New Guinea Austronesians are often seen as Papuan in culture.[citation needed][clarification needed]" This is not rigorous in terms of ethnology, linguistics... it is only a biaised popular point of view that I still doubt it is so widespread...

- "Papuan ethnic groups" list: Many ethnic group in the list are not Papuan but Austronesian. In term of Papua New Guinea ethnic group, the list if correct, in term of Papuan ethnic family group the list if incorrect. Example: Tolai people who are Austronesian. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Docteur Tomate (talk • contribs) 16:05, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

"So-called"?

I'm sure what is implied by this phraseology. Should we also refer to English as "so-called"? Smacks of ethnocentricism. Kortoso (talk) 20:49, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Population

I have removed the population number of "approximately 2 million" from the infobox. This estimate was added by an anonymous user, it is unsourced and doesn't appear to make any sense (since more than 11 million people live on New Guinea). Though I have no real idea on what is meant by "Papuan people", one would assume it would include most of the population of New Guinea, so 2 million can't be correct. Can we get a proper (sourced) estimate? --Hibernian (talk) 02:43, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Gallery

This image was removed from the article:

• 
  "Papoeas" photo from 1860, by Woodbury & Page

OrganicEarth (talk) 20:00, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

More Australian aborigenes

Are there more Australian aborigenes than Papuan people before colonisation?--Kaiyr (talk) 19:06, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

There were probably more Papuans, because they had farming technology, rather than just being hunter-gatherers. Although I have seen estimates of the numbers of Australian Aborigines at 700,000 or 1 million, I haven't seen any estimates for ancient New Guinea, but it could be higher. It's hard to be sure, but I would guess at New Guinea having more people. --Hibernian (talk) 02:12, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Merged

To Melanesians. There is no ethnic distinction, only a linguistic one. And, as noted above, many of the 'Papuans' in this article were Austronesian. If the author can't tell the difference ...! Seriously, all 'Papuan' means is a language that isn't Austronesian, but language family does not correspond to ethnicity. — kwami (talk) 06:34, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Wrong. Language is part of ethnicity and Papuan languages are indigenous to New Guinea for 50,000 years, not Austronesian languages who only arrived 3500 years ago. Papuans are a culturally distinct group. They are also genetically distinct. Papuans do not have the golden yellow hair found in Melanesians for example, or the somewhat Asiatic facial appearance (e.g. in eyes) in dark skinned Melanesians. Genetic studies have shown that Melanesian groups have between 5-20% Austronesian genetic heritage, but that this was absent in the indigenous Papuan groups. Papuans are genetically closest to indigenous Australian aborigines, not Melanesians. Epf2018 (talk) 11:26, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

"the study still found a small Austronesian genetic signature (below 20%) in some of the Melanesian groups who speak Austronesian languages, and which was entirely absent in the Papuan-speaking groups... A minority of Island Melanesian populations have indications of a small shared genetic ancestry with Polynesians and Micronesians (the ones that have this tie all speak related Austronesian languages)." Epf2018 (talk) 11:39, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Correct, language is part of ethnicity, but deep linguistic connections are not. (If it were demonstrated that English and Japanese were related, that would not make "Anglo-Japanese" or "Eurasian" an ethnic group.) And since there's no demonstrable connection between the families lumped under the term "Papuan" (linguists normally just call them "non-Austronesian"), how does that justify claiming that "Papuan" is an ethnicity anyway? Doesn't it support the idea that they're *not* an ethnicity? Also, per your genetic data, the majority of "Austronesians" in Melanesia are 100% Papuan. Which ones? Without defining your terms, this entire article is an exercise in OR.

I tagged the dubious statements, which was nearly every single thing in the article, except for some of the genetic summaries which are a content fork of Melanesians. This article is just another misguided attempt at passing off historical linguistics as ethnography. — kwami (talk) 02:22, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

There are Melanesians who speak AN languages, those who do not, and those we can't tell (their languages are mixed or ambiguous). There are Melanesians with some AN ancestry, and those without. The groups partially overlap. Is a Melanesian who speaks an AN language but has no AN ancestry Papuan or AN? Is a Melanesian who speaks a non-AN language but does have AN ancestry Papuan or AN? Since the majority of Austronesian-speakers in Melanesia are 0% Austronesian genetically, and the rest are all more than 80% "Papuan", how does that define a "Papuan" ethnicity that's distinct from "Melanesian"?

This article is like creating an article on "native Europeans" that includes all the people of Europe except the Gypsies, Turks and Jews. You can demonstrate that those groups are all linguistic, cultural and genetic outliers, but how would the rest be an ethnicity group? Do you have to speak Romany to be a Gypsy? Yiddish to be a Jew? Do you have to have Turkic ancestry to be a Turk? The whole idea would be an OR mess. Just like "Papua" vs "Melanesian". — kwami (talk) 02:39, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

• Your arguments are non-sensical. Gypsies, Turks and Jews ARE genetically, physically, culturally and linguistically distinct from indigenous Europeans, and there IS an article on indigenous European peoples, clearly differentiating them from foreign groups who have only arrived in historical times. Papuan-speaking groups in New Guinea and most nearby islands where they are present DO NOT have Austronesian genetic admixture. Based on all studies, most Austronesian-speaking groups in the Melanesia area have between 5-20% Austronesian admixture. Mixed languages are almost all mostly Austronesian, and there are no actual mixed Papuan-Austronesian languages. Mentioning one or two outliers is also nonsensical, and does not invalidate the separate distinctive grouping between the aboriginal Papuans and the Austronesian groups. Every Papuan group in New Guinea has zero Austronesian admixture, with a few on nearby highlands having less than 5%. The only exception found is the Papuan-speaking groups on Halmahera, who have more Austronesian admixture. Those are rare exceptions or transitional groups. There are only SOME Austronesian-speaking groups who have almost zero Austronesian admixture, but they still speak Austronesian and have Austronesian culture, despite being genetically Papuan. By contrast, there are ZERO groups who are mostly or wholly Austronesian genetically who speak a Papuan language. EVERY PAPUAN-SPEAKING GROUPS IS EITHER 100% PAPUAN GENETICALLY, OR MOSTLY PAPUAN GENETICALLY. NO PAPUAN-SPEAKING GROUP HAS BEEN FOUND TO NOT BE MOSTLY PAPUAN IN GENETICS AND PHYSICAL APPEARANCE. Epf2018 (talk) 19:19, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Do we have any genetic studies that cover the West Papua - Halmahera - Timor - Sumba region? There were "Papuans" on Sumbawa, after all, so there may be a "Papuan" genetic signature at least that far west, and the Central Malayo-Polynesian languages as a group show evidence of a non-Austronesian (that is, "Papuan") substratum. Indeed, it's been argued that Central MP is not a valid linguistic group, but rather those languages that were strongly affected by similar non-AN ("Papuan") substratum effects.

We could move this article to People of New Guinea and not pretend that Melanesians who speak Austronesian languages are a different ethnic group than Melanesians who don't, any more than Africans who speak European languages are a different ethnic group than Africans who don't. (Wouldn't that be a silly pair of articles? "European-speaking Africans" and "African-speaking Africans"? And I'm sure you could find a genetic signature to justify it.) Or we could acknowledge that when referring to people, "Papuan" is just a racial type, which the supposed "Austronesians" of New Guinea belong to (as your ref demonstrates), and has little to do with language. Though, granted, some people get sloppy and reify the linguistic distinction as an ethnic one, analogous to claiming that Indo-European-speaking Europeans are a distinct people from other Europeans. — kwami (talk) 03:23, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

• European-speaking Africans (as a native tongue) are almost always ethnically or genetically mixed, with groups such as mulattoes or coloureds, and the group does not just have to be labelled as speakers. Austronesian Melanesians specifically have partial Austronesian genetic ancestry, AND Austronesian cultural traditions. Africans who are native, monolingual speakers of non-African languages are, in any case, distinguished culturally and lnguistically, while there are articles of genetically/ethnically mixed European-African groups. There is a clear correlation between genetic and linguistic ancestries (native language spoken and native culture) in most studies of ethnic groups.Epf2018 (talk) 21:04, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

I totally agree with kwami here, and still think that blanking+redirect to Melanesians would be the best solution to the matter. At the risk of repeating some of kwami's arguments, the following points should be clear:

• The connection of language and ethnicity only works at the lowest emic/etic level. There are examples of tight-knit language groups where speakers and/or outsiders have a sense of a single (macro-)ethnicity (e.g. the Han Chinese, the Batak in Indonesia, the Berber), but going beyond that, it leads to the creation of spurious entities such as the "Austronesian peoples", which have nothing in common but being the set of Austronesian-speaking peoples.
• The concept of Papuan people(s) is even more spurious, since there is no single Papuan language family.
• The article by Friedlaender et. al. which is cited as supporting source for the assumption of the "Papuan people", actually does the total opposite. The authors carefully talk about "Papuan-speaking" peoples and "Austronesian-speaking" peoples, and even though they find certain correlations between linguistic and genetic affiliation, they do not fall into the trap of lumping ethnic groups together just because of the dominance of certain genetic features. Science has definitely progressed since the time of cranial index-based anthropology!

kwami's current revamp of the article with "Papuan people(s)" denoting the "People of New Guinea" Island makes sense though. But for that sake we should completely remove residual material of the earlier, dubious concept of the article. If we get a consensus here, I will contribute with edits in that direction. –Austronesier (talk) 15:40, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

• You make many incorrect statements here. The example of the Han Chinese is a poor choice, because every genetic study has shown all Han Chinese to have a distinctive genetic cluster, or shared ancestry, despite a genetic difference or cline between northern Han and southern Han. Southern Han are distinct from northern, but STILL have a significant amount of Han ancestry shared with northerners, especially in paternal lineages. All Han cluster fairly close to one another. Berbers also have a shared indigenous Berber/Maghrebi genetic ancestry, found in all Berber groups, and Arabized Berbers as well. The Batak have Austronesian genetic ancestry found in nearly all Austronesian groups, so that also is a bad example. As for the Friedlander study, it says specifically that the Austronesian genetic ancestry is ABSENT from the Papuan-speaking groups in Melanesia, and only found in the Austronesian-speaking groups. It states specifically a major genetic distinction between Papuan ancestry and, literally, an 'Austronesian' genetic ancestry. Epf2018 (talk) 21:10, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

@Austronesier: Thanks, Austronesier. I still prefer merging. There's the recent finding that the New Guinea seems to have been first populated by two lineages, perhaps one from along the northern and one from along the southern margins of the Malay archipelago. That's all very interesting, though I don't understand how a distinction between Papuan and Oz comes in unless it's just separation by water for 10ky. The problem I have w splitting off Papuan from the rest of Melanesian is I don't know where 'Papuan' ends. Are the people of the Bismarcks genetically Papuan? Where do they become more than 20% AN? Without knowing how to delineate the article, it all seems rather iffy. Thus 'people of New Guinea', though we still have the problem of which offshore islands to count as New Guinea, since we can't go by language, especially to the west. I suppose we could restrict ourselves to islands within visual range and ignore the Papuan-speaking outliers.

Anyway, I appreciate any contributions you can make, to whichever article. This is well outside my area.

BTW, I would support you if you need to revamp or rd Austronesian people. I got rid of most such articles, but left that one because of the extensive coverage of AN migration in the lit. We probably need to be clear that we're talking about a historical migration and not a modern ethnicity. — kwami (talk) 16:59, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

@kwami: Austronesian peoples still has its merits as long as it sticks to migrations and the movement of coherent cultural traits which are reflected in reconstructed etyma of PAN, PMP down to PPn. But the funny thing is: there is almost nothing of it in the article! BTW, there are two real bullshit articles which need appropriate treatment: Austronesian hypothesis and Austronesia. –Austronesier (talk) 19:30, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

I cleaned up AN peoples a bit (yeah, I noticed how the culture section wasn't about AN culture) and deleted AN. The latter works as a Wiktionary entry. — kwami (talk) 20:57, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

• What a load of nonsense. Papuan languages are the indigenous non-Austronesian languages of New Guinea and neighbouring islands. Papuans are a DISTINCT genetic cluster from Austronesian Melanesians in EVERY genetic study done, and they do have a distinct physical appearance. They are an ethnic grouping based on shared genetics, race/physical appearance, non-Austronesian language groups, and cultual traits. Negritos and other groups are genetically distinct from Papuans, despite having some similar physical features, so that is a false equivalency. Austronesians are not a uniform group either, genetically or culturally, but there is still a single article for Austronesians because they do have some genetic, linguistic and cultural traits in common. Austronesian-speaking groups of Melanesia have a different physical appearance, showing clear signs of Austronesian admixture and every genetic study has shown them to have about 20% of genetic Austronesian admixture. They have a different culture from Papuan groups as well, and of course a different language. They are a different ethnic grouping within Melanesia, based on language, genetics, appearance and culture. Most Papuan languages are part of the Trans-New Guinea language group. Yes, there are multiple families, and cultures, but they are also a shared genetic grouping distinct from all others. The same goes for Negritos of the Phillipines, Anadamanese, Australian Aborigines, Austroasiatics, Tak-Kadai peoples, Uralic peoples, etc. Genetics, language and cultures are not the same, but they are interrelated. The genetic studies show this. Papuans, as a ethnographic group, are distinguished in every study as a major genetic grouping, and linguistic as well, from the Austronesian groups of coastal New Guinea and island Melanesia. Austronesian Melanesians are distinct from indigenous Papuans, and this delineation merits a separate ethnicity article for Papuan peoples, who have shared genetic, physical, cultural and linguistic features. Epf2018 (talk) 18:54, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

• What does aboriginal, or indigenous mean? A people and culture who are the first inhabitants of a region, or descendants of them. Papuan-speaking groups are those peoples. Can you say that for Austronesian groups in the area, when comparing them to Papuan-speakers? No, and they only arrived 3500 years ago. Austronesian-speakers all have either genetic admixture, or culture and language, who is NOT aboriginal, and only arrived 3500 years ago. That is NOT the case for 98% of Papuan groups who are completely or almost completely Papuan genetically and in physical appearance, and in terms of language and culture. Every anthropological and genetic study on Melanesia makes a clear distinction between Papuan and Austronesian groups, in terms of genetics, physical appearance, language and culture. The fact there is SOME overlap in a FEW outlying cases is irrelevant, and does not negate the groupings.

"the study still found a small Austronesian genetic signature (below 20%) in some of the Melanesian groups who speak Austronesian languages, and which was entirely absent in the Papuan-speaking groups... A minority of Island Melanesian populations have indications of a small shared genetic ancestry with Polynesians and Micronesians (the ones that have this tie all speak related Austronesian languages)."

There are specifically these ethnic groups, which could each have an article:

• Papuans - 100% or almost 100% genetically and linguistically (vast majority of Papuans)
• Austronesian-speakers of Melanesia who also have some (5-20%) Austronesian genetic admixture (plurality or majority, depending on study)
• Austronesian-speakers of Melanesia who have zero or almost zero Austronesian admixture (plurality or majority, depending on study)
• A very small number of extreme outliers, a minority on Halmahera, exist who are Papuan speakers (Togutil people, Tobelo people), but with significant Austronesian admixture (roughly 60% Papuan and 40% Autronesian). Papuan-speaking groups in East Timor and on Alor Island (Bunak people, Abui people) are Papuans, and only have very small amounts of Austronesian gene flow, and are genetically still %90 to %95 Papuan.

All of these are groupings and could have articles. This does not negate that there is a Papuan grouping, which is referenced in every study, or an admixed Papuan-Austronesian group in Melanesia also referenced in every study. Epf2018 (talk) 19:40, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Also, the comparison between indigenous Europeans and Turks, Jews and Gypsies is silly. Turks, Jews and Gypsies are genetically, physically, culturally and linguistically different from indigenous Europeans (Europeans are completely a varying mix of Western HG, Eastern HG, Early EF and Yamna/Aryan ancestries; Jews also have Semitic ancestry; Turks also have Turkic/Siberian/east Asian; Gypsies also have Indo-Aryan/ANI/ASI). Indigenous Europeans do not speak Turkish, Jewish or Gypsy languages, and do not have any respective Turkic, Canaanite/Semitic or Indo-Aryan genetic ancestries. Epf2018 (talk) 19:40, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

• With regards to Australian Aborigines, they have been shown to be a distinct genetic clade from Papuans, Negritos, Andamanese, etc. Australian Aborigine groups entered Australia up to 50,000-60,000 years ago. Thus, many Australian Aborigine groups have been separate from Papuans for much longer than 10,000 years, as claimed by "kwami". Papuan groups settled in the Torres Strait Islands and in parts of northern Australia, where there is significant genetic and linguistic diversity, in the past 20,000 years since the formation of the Torres Strait, but Australian Aborigines are linguistically and culturally completely distinct from Papuans, and have been shown to be a distinct genetic cluster, albeit with some Papuan gene flow in the northern fringes of Australia. Epf2018 (talk) 19:59, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

• Another argument against merging this article into Melanesians, besides the genetic, linguistic and cultural distinction between Papuan groups and admixed Austronesian-speaking Melanesians, is the fact that the Melanesians article includes Fijians, and even a photo of a Fijian chief. Fijians have been shown to be %40-%50 genetically Austronesian. They are genetically very different from Papuans who are 100% genetically Papuan in most cases. Genetic studies also clearly label 'Melanesians' and 'Papuans' as separate ethnological, geographic and genetic populations/groups >>> See Figure 2 (in this study Melanesians shown to be 20% Austronesian (orange), but Papuans almost completely to be 100% Papuan (green)) Epf2018 (talk) 20:53, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

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@Epf2018: I still consider "Papuan people" or "Papuan peoples" a questionable entity for a WP article, and therefore prefer to merge the article to Melanesians. I will address your latest comments (not all of them though) in a single block, for the sake of a coherent argument:

• The correlation between language and ethnicity only works at the lowest-level, the ethnolinguistic group. An ethnoliguistic group is defined by a common language (not language group!), and at same time by coherent cultural traits (cf. ethnicity). Lithuanians, Hungarians, Palauans, Sandawe, Wayuu are ethnoliguistic groups. Language and ethnicity do not always overlap, as can be seen from the infamous cases (infamous because of the violent conflicts) of the Croatians, Bosnians and Serbs, or the Tutsi and Hutu in Burundi and Rwanda. And many ethnic groups are not ethnolinguistic groups, cf. the hundreds of cases of language shift/extinction, which e.g. turned the Xinca into Spanish speakers; yet, the Xinca still are a distinct ethnic group. There are few cases were people share a common ethnic identity even though they speak related, but clearly distinct languages. Let me cite again for this (and for no other purpose, since you missed my point!) the Han Chinese, the Batak and the Berber (in the latter case the concept of a single Berber ethnicity is highly politicized). Here, the ethnic group does not equate with a single language, but with a linguistic microgroup. But beyond that, it simply does not work. Linguistic groupings do not define ethnic groups, nor do they define ethnographic groupings. The “Austronesian peoples” are not an ethnic or ethnoliguistic group, rather, they are just the set of ethnic groups that speak Austronesian languages, nothing more. The existence of a WP article does not give any more justification to the doubtful entity of the "Austronesian peoples".

• Genetics: Ethnicity is defined by many parameters, but not by shared genetic features. Genetics is an extremely powerful tool to understand the prehistory of ethnic groups, especially to figure out prehistoric migrations which have left no other signature because of cultural and linguistic shifts. BUT: genetic features do not define ethnicity. The Baining know who they are (=emic ethnicity), so do their neighbors (=etic ethnicity), without having access to a laboratory. Most geneticist are careful enough to talk about data clustering, but not about racial categories, which are obsolete and do not adequately describe human genetic diversity.

• Papuans: You repeatedly speak about "100% Papuan features". And yet all the sources you cite (and all serious scientific articles) employ the term not for a clear-defined entity, but as a conventient cover term for everything in the Melanesian area (and the adjacent parts of Maritime SEA) that is non-Austronesian. The peoples of Melanesia display an enormous diversity in all aspects (language, culture, genetics etc.) even if you subtract the AN component. Lumping them together under the label "Papuan" is simply done for practical purposes, like geneticists and linguists often do to avoid clumsier terms like "non-AN languages of Melanesia (and eastern Maritime SEA)", or "non-AN speaking people of Melanesia (and eastern Maritime SEA)" or "peoples of Melanesia (and eastern Maritime SEA) that lack genetic signatures associated with the prehistorical expansion of Austronesian-speaking peoples". Beyond that, lumping them together is not legitimate and simply does not justice to their amazing diversity. The (non-AN-speaking; isolate) Anem people and the (non-AN-speaking; isolate) Baining people are not closer to each other than both are to the (AN-speaking) Tigak people; linguistically and genetically. And lumping the former together with the (non-AN-speaking; TNG) Yali people is even less valid.

There are other points I could address (as your over-restricted definition of "indigenous"), but I won’t because I am not keen on turning this in to a battle of rants.

To sum up: 1a. linguistic groupings do not necessarily define ethnographic entities. 1b. Even if they did, groupings based on negative features (here: Papuan = non-Austronesian) would hardly do. 2a. Genetic features help to explain ethnographic facts, but do not define them. 2b. Even if they did, features based on negative definitions (here: Papuan = the absence of Austronesian signatures) would hardly do, especially in the context of the extreme diversity found in Melanesia. For that reason, I support to merge the current article to Melanesians. The article Melanesians is legitimate, as it covers Melanesia as a geographic area. This is the only good way to give justice to the great cultural, linguistic and genetic diversity found in this part of the world. —Austronesier (talk) 11:42, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

The correlation between ethnicity and language is not at the lowest level, especially with regards to the indigenous, aboriginal or native language of a population and not to other acquired language spoken due to language shift. Language groups and genetic populations are found to overlap and correlate in the majority of studies, along with geography. Language does correlate with the Croats, Bosniaks and Serbs, as they are all Slavs who speak southern Slavic dialects known as Serbo-Croatian, and all also claim Slavic ancestry, while genetics has shown them to all have Slavic genetic lineages, while having a mixture of Slavic and native Balkan physical features. Your example of the Hutu and the Tutsi is also a good one, but not for your position. They are different ethnic groups who speak different dialects of the same language, so what makes them different? Genetics has shown them to have differences, and they have clear differences in physical appearance and ancestral origins. The Tutsi have historical traditions claiming partial descent from northern pastoralists who mixed with Bantu-speakers and adopted their language. Shared ancestry and physical traits is a marker of ethnicity, however, which is why the Tutsi identify as a separate group from the Hutus. But even in this case, there is a correlation between language and genetics, as the Hutu have Bantu genetic ancestry, and so do the Tutsis, but the Tutsis also have additional Nilotic pastoralist ancestry not found in Hutus. The Han Chinese all claim to have Han ancestry, going back to ancient northern China, and genetics has supported this genetic lineage in them as a clade, but with southern Han simply also having additional non-Han admixture (from Tai peoples indigenous to southern China). The Xinca turned into Spanish speakers but their native, original language is Xinca, and they claim to have that shared origin, and not to be of any Spanish origins/extraction like the Mestizos or Spanish Mexicans do. The Xinca have ancestral, genetic and physical differences that set them apart, as well as cultural features, from Mestizos or other Spanish speakers. They are not defined by Spanish language as they do not claim to be of Spanish origin or descent, and Spanish is not their original, native tongue that defines their culture. In terms of Austronesians, they do have shared cultural and linguistic traits from proto-Austronesians, and thus would be an ethnolinguistic group, and this has been verified by genetics which shows nearly all of them to have varying degrees of shared ancestry from an Austronesian genetic lineage which originated on Taiwan. Epf2018 (talk) 17:23, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Ethnicity is usually defined by a shared common descent and genealogy, and also often on shared physical features, not just cultural and linguistics which also overlap with shared ancestry, and partially derive from them in terms of genetic isolation and some behavioural traits. Genetics is a scientific tool to elaborate on these characteristics of ethnicities and populations, supporting, rejecting and/or providing a different insight on their origins. Geneticists clearly use ethnic categories with regards to their observed genetic clusters, including population, ecotype, cline, subspecies, race, ethnic groups, cultural groups, etc. Racial categories are consistently refined and changed just as subspecies are, but as a category is not considered obsolete at all. Harvard geneticist David Reich (geneticist) has pointed this out especially, and genetic populations do correlate with racial categories, even colloquial ones which differ between locations and cultures. The level of correlation varies, and of course they are refined to more accurately reflect actual genetic distinctions, but does not mean the categorization process itself is invalid, or that there are no correlations. Subspecies, racial groups, genetic lineages, populations, etc. all exist, and correlate with presumed ethnic origins of groups to varying extents, but also are revived based on more findings and evidence. The purpose of the genetic studies is to investigate the claimed presumed ancestral origins of ethnic groups and racial populations, and most often supports such claimed shared ancestry to varying extents. Genetic studies routinely show the strong correlation between claimed ancestry, language groups, geography and genetic clusters. Hence, this is why terms like Papuan and Melanesian are used in the studies to refer to those populations, and terms like 'Austronesian' and 'Papuan' to refer to respective genetic clusters and lineages, to elaborate on the distinctive genetic populations which correlate with the ethnic groups based on claims of those ancestries. Epf2018 (talk) 17:00, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

From Harvard geneticist David Reich's Who We Are and How We Got Here (2018):

"It is simply no longer possible to ignore average genetic differences between races."

"Differences in genetic ancestry that happen to correlate with many of today's racial constructs are real."

"Genetic variations are likely to affect behaviour and cognition just as they affect other traits."

"(Pretending) that scientific research has shown there can be no meaningful average genetic difference among human populations...is contradicted by scientific facts." Who We Are and How We Got Here at Google Books Epf2018 (talk) 18:56, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

The sources I cite clearly reference Papuans as a distinctive population, and as a very distinctive genetic clade and lineage (ancestral group, ecotype, subspecies, race, ethnicity, etc.), separated from the Austronesian genetic lineage, as well as that of Negrito groups and Austro-Asiatics. Papuan is used as a collective term for a population speaking non-Austronesian languages on New Guinea and whom have shared genetic, cultural and physical features that set them apart from Austronesians and/or Austronesian-speaking Melanesians. Yes, Papuans do have further differentiation, but they also form a genetic clade together with shared physical appearance that sets them apart, and nearly all Papuan groups are genetically closer to each other than they are to any Austronesian group. Even many Papuan groups outside New Guinea have mostly Papuan ancestry that marks them as very different genetically from most Austronesian groups geographically closer to them. Your example of Baining people and Tigak people is also incorrect. Did you read the genetic studies? They say quite clearly there is a marked distinction on islands like New Ireland and New Britain between coastal Austronesian-speakers, who have Austronesian admixture, and inland Papuan groups who have none of it, and are 100% Papuan - in those cases the Papuan groups ARE genetically closer to some other Papuan groups on nearby islands than they are to neighbouring Austronesian-speakers who have Austronesian admixture. If Melanesians is good enough to have an ethnicity article, than so can Papuans, especially since Papuans as a group have clear genetics, ancestry, physical traits and language that mark them as a better define geographic and ethnic grouping than "Melanesian" does.Epf2018 (talk) 17:41, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Melanesians is displayed as an ethnicity article, not a geographic one, and I do not see how Papuans, a term used in anthropological and genetic studies to refer to these groups of non-Austronesians of New Guinea and neighbouring islands, is any less valid. Papuans have distinct cultural, linguistic and genetic characteristics. Genetics are a scientific elaboration of one of the core things that define an ethnicity - shared genealogical descent/origins and physical features. Melanesia can remain as an article, but Papuans is a more specific article. Ethnicities can be part of larger, macrogroupings but also be refined to more specific ones. Papuans are a coherent geographic, cultural and genetic grouping, all of which are a basis for ethnicity. It is a group with clear cultural, linguistic, physical and ancestral differences from populations that are mixed Austronesian-Papuan. It is thus no less valid than Melanesians, and in fact is more supported genetically and anthropologically. Epf2018 (talk) 16:49, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

To summarize:

1) Is there an ethnic (genetic, ancestral, linguistic, cultural) difference between Papuan groups and non-Papuan groups in Melanesia? Yes.

2) Is "Melanesians" any more valid an ethnographic grouping than "Papuans"? No (in fact, Papuans have more ethnicity traits in common).

3) Are shared ancestry, shared genetic traits ("shared blood" before rise of genetics) and shared physical/anatomical traits part of ethnic and tribal identification? Yes.

4) Do Papuan groups have some ancestral, cultural, genetic, geographic, physical and linguistic (non-AN, non-Australian) features in common that they share in setting them apart from Austronesians, Australian Aborigines, and others? Yes. [1]

Thus, Papuans are as much, if not more, a valid ethnographic grouping than Melanesians. And Melanesians is not simply a geographic article as Austronesier claims, as the article is one about ethnicity, with an ethnicity infobox.Epf2018 (talk) 18:00, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, too much bullshit to bother reading it all. You're directly contradicted by the abstracts of your own sources. — kwami (talk) 19:01, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

That's not an argument, and my sources clearly state a difference between Papuan and Melanesian populations, with Melanesians showing 20% genetic admixture from the Austronesian genetic lineage. Every study I cite shows a clear genetic distinction between Papuan group, who have zero Austronesian admixture, and Austronesian-speaking groups where all the Austronesian admixture is found. Try re-reading them. 19:15, 20 April 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Epf2018 (talk • contribs)

• Papuans are no less valid an ethnographic grouping than Australian Aborigines, Indigenous Australians, Negritos, Andamanese, Melanesians, Moluccans or Austronesians, yet every one of these groups has an ethnicity article, with ethnicity infoboxes in all of them except for the Andamanese article. Thus, these oppositions by the user Kwamikagami are unfounded, with his comments being increasingly hostile and lacking any sensibility, reasoning or sources to contradict the numerous sources I provided mentioning Papuans as an ethnographic grouping, which is the case for every genetic or anthropological study done on the region. Epf2018 (talk) 00:08, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Honest question for the 'Melanesian' proponents

Do the users who want to merge Papuans into Melanesians honestly think that Yali people, Ni-Vanuatu and Fijians are the same ethnic group of "Melanesians"? (the latter two Austronesian groups have some clear Asiatic Austronesian facial features, and lighter complexions, while the Yali are completely Papuan/Australoid/Australo-Melanesian) Yali people are genetically 100% Papuan, Ni-Vanuatu are genetically 80% Papuan and 20% Austronesian, while Fijians are genetically 60% Papuan and 40% Austronesian.[2] Yali people are linguistically and culturally 100% Papuan, while Ni-Vanuatu and Fijians are linguistically and culturally most Austronesian. Clearly Papuans are distinctive genetic, cultural, geographic and linguistic grouping that is different from Austronesian Melanesians, who are partially Austronesian genetically AND/OR Austronesian culturally and linguistically. Melanesia is just a geographic area, and is not a single genetic or cultural groupings. There is a clear genetic and cultural distinction in Melanesia between Austronesian and non-Austronesian groups, just as there is in Indonesia between Austronesian, non-Austronesian Austro-Asiatic, and non-Austronesian Papuan. Epf2018 (talk) 21:39, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

File:Early stages of the Austronesian diaspora showing best-fit genomic proportions of Austronesian-speaking peoples in ISEA and their inferred population movements.png

Best-fit genomic mixture proportions of Austronesians in Island Southeast Asia and their inferred population movements

Short answer (@kwami: I think, you will agree): Melanesians are not an ethnic group. They are just the indigenous (AN and non-AN!) people of Melanesia, which is–as you correctly say–just a geographic area. So, sure to have Yali people, Ni-Vanuatu and Fijians in the same article is just fine. Just as having Yali people and Baining people in one article. Btw, it may be off-topic: who are the Austroasiatic speakers of Indonesia? —Austronesier (talk) 12:29, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

As per the image to the right, genetic studies have shown many Austronesian groups in Indonesia to be of partial or in some cases (e.g. Javanese people) mostly Austro-Asiatic genetic descent, and thus a mix of Austro-Asiatic and Austronesian genetic and cultural lineages. No Austroasiatic languages are spoken today, but some must have been spoken in the past on Sumatra and Java, affiliated either to Nicobarese languages, the Shompen language or the Aslian languages. There are suggestions that additional branches of Austroasiatic might be preserved in substrata of Acehnese in Sumatra (Diffloth) and the Land Dayak languages of Borneo (Adelaar 1995). Epf2018 (talk) 16:24, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

@Austronesier: Agreed, "Melanesian" is not an ethnicity. That article should be changed accordingly. But then neither are Papuan or Austronesian.

Yes, I've heard of an Austroasiatic substratum in Sumatra.

Epf2018, you keep saying "there is a clear genetic and cultural distinction in Melanesia between Austronesian and non-Austronesian groups". I call bullshit on both counts. In New Guinea, there is no cultural distinction between indigenous AN and non-AN (ignoring recent Malay and Javanese immigrants). There is a cultural distinction between highlanders and coastal people, but that doesn't correlate well to language. And according to the source you provided last time, the majority of Austronesian-speakers are 100% Papuan genetically, and the rest are all over 80% Papuan. So no, there is no "clear distinction". As for Melanesians varying genetically and culturally per geography, of course they do. So do Africans (think of the Berber, Yoruba and !Kung). So do Europeans. So do Asians. So do Native Americans. So what?

I don't have a problem with this article being under the name "Papuan" as long as you stop pushing your spurious claim that there's any kind of straightforward correlation between "Papuan people" and "Papuan languages". The Papuan genetic signature is great for tracing the history of migration to the area. We could of course have an article (maybe this article) dedicated to that topic. That would be fascinating. But "Papuan" is not an ethnic identity and has little relevance for people today, any more than correlating "Negro people" to specific "Negro languages" would be for Africa.

"Non-Austronesian Papuan" only makes sense historically, as does "Austronesian" and "Indo-European". None of those articles should be about modern peoples selected by the languages they happen to speak. (Otherwise a lot of genetic Africans and Native Americans would be Indo-Europeans, just as you keep trying to portray genetic Papuans as Austronesians while denying that you're doing so, both of which makes the topics incoherent.)

Don't delete maintenance tags. That approaches vandalism. And when you change the article to say that "Papuans" do not include local "Austronesians", but then list "Austronesians" as notable "Papuans", I can only conclude that you're engaged in intentional bullshit.

Oh, and I like how one of your refs (the one that nice map came from) give "Papuan" as an outlier when reconstructing AN genetics, cf Yoruba and Mandekan further out, as if "Papuan" were a single people or we could know what they were talking about from that word. Such inept sloppiness would be a red flag if I were reviewing the article. — kwami (talk) 18:24, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

• Kwami, the Papuans have a distinct genetic cluster in every genetic study that highly separates them from all the other groups and populations. Of course there are further within them, probably major ones, just as there are between different Negritos. Negritos and Papuans are both macrogroupings, but both also form distinct genetic clusters. Papuans have the highest rates of Denisovan and "ghost" hominin admixture so far detected in modern humans. Only Austronesian-speaking groups in Melanesia have additional Austronesian genetic admixture. Austronesian-speaking groups have major cultural differences from Papuan groups, especially since they ALL are located on or very close to the coast, and share some cultural traits with other Austronesian groups elsewhere not found in Papuans, especially with regards to maritime cultural features. Papuans by contrast can be found both inland and on the coast, but all highlanders are Papuan and there is large genetic and cultural difference between them and the coastal Austronesian-speakers. There are coastal Papuan groups as well, but coastal Papuans are still genetically 100% Papuan and have no Austronesian admixture, while that is not the case for many, or most, of the Austronesian groups, depending on the study. Papuans also have their own distinct language families which are not Austronesian in any way. As for maintenance tag, it was an unwarranted one and only you decided to add it. As for the list of notable Papuans, if some of them are Austronesian, then by all means remove them. That doesn't mean you need to remove the entire article. I have edited the list of Papuan ethnicities so that they are all speakers of Papuan language families and all of aboriginal Papuan genetic origins.

• Finally, this is not a final step in making Papuan ethnicity articles. Clearly, there is more specification which needs to be done. I don't see why we can't keep all these articles. Melanesian is the largest grouping, Papuan is more specific, and there are more specific ones within that. There is clearly a distinction between Papuans, Austronesian-speaking Papuans, and highly admixed Austronesian-Papuans (e.g. Fijians) within Melanesia, so there is no need to just have one article for them. They can be broken down into constituent, more specific articles. An article on the Trans Fly and Trans New Guinea peoples or speakers for example could be made, who are both 100% Papuan genetically and linguistically, or the inclusion of genetics and ancestry in respective Papuan ethnic groups. Negritos, Papuans, Austro-Asiatics are all valid macro-ethnographic groupings with shared genetic, cultural and linguistic traits to varying degrees, as well as substantial within group differences. Epf2018 (talk) 19:39, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

• Another important point I want to make is that I was not the person who created the Papuan people article. Several other users created this article long before I ever started to add to it and edit it in recent days. Also, if you look at the Melanesians article, it is heavily skewed towards Austronesian Melanesian groups (genetically and/or culturally/linguistically), with all of the pictures being of Austronesian groups, and a whole large section on Austronesian languages and history in the region. However, there is very little to nothing in the article about Papuan language groups and families, history, or any pictures of Papuan ethnicties. Clearly the creators of the Melanesians articles were also largely referring to the Austronesian and Austronesian-speaking groups of Melanesia rather than Papuans. Epf2018 (talk) 00:34, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Okay, first of all, deleting the tags is close to vandalism, and if you continue I will report you and ask to have you blocked.

The fact that you don't seem to understand the studies you cite makes it difficult to discuss things with you. Where do I begin? Nearly everything you just said is wrong. It would take ages to debunk it all. For example, the fact that you think it would be worthwhile to create an article on TNG people demonstrates that you have little idea of what you're talking about. TNG is a historical linguistic theory. If there is genetic evidence to support it, great, but otherwise the idea of "TNG peoples" is just whacking off. If someone came up with a Basque-Dravidian-Andamanese-Quechua language family proposal they called "Badranchua", and you then created an article on the "Badranchua people", I would call bullshit on that too. Ethnographic articles need to stand or fall on their own merits, not on whether some linguistic classification is accepted on not. What, for example, is the non-linguistic evidence for the existence of TNG people?

The fact that you can't tell which of the 'notable people' are Austronesian also demonstrates your lack of understanding of the subject. Really, it's pretty obvious for some of them.

The fact that the Melanesian article is bad is not reason to make this article bad. Rather, you should spend some of your effort to improving that article, where improvement is so obviously needed. The fact that other clueless people wrote this article does not mean that the article should be bad either. There are lots of clueless people adding garbage to WP. When we notice, we fix it or delete it, depending on whether it's worth the effort (and we have the time) to fix it. We don't give equal time to pseudoscience and science.

Read just the abstracts of the articles you cite. That's enough to show that there is not a Papuan-vs-AN ethnic divide in New Guinea. I'm a bit amazed really that you still haven't picked up on that. — kwami (talk) 03:42, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Okay, since you again deleted the maintenance tags that I added for the OR, merging etc. that we're discussing, after I threatened to report you to ANI if you did it again, I reported you to ANI, as I notified you on your talk page. I'm not sure 3RR is the proper place to report this (it used to be, but their page intro doesn't seem to support that any more), but we should be able to figure that out. — kwami (talk) 04:47, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

You are the one who will be reported and potentially blocked if you keep reverting edits unilaterally without coming to consensus first, as well as your unacceptable page moves and hostile comments and attacks.

You are the one who isn't reading the studies or even replying to the discussion in good faith. You can't "debunk" anything given everything I stated is supported by enormous evidence in the academic literature, and your language use in your discourse here is vulgar, disgusting and aggressive. You will be reported for it if you don't stop. Your ridiculous comparison to a non-existent macro-language grouping with no cultural, genetic, physical or linguistic connections is a non-sequitur and irrelevant to discussion. TNG languages, however, are a completely supported, valid, ethnolinguistic grouping according to almost every study, and so is a valid grouping for an article of the groups who are native speakers of those languages and who share those cultural traits. They have been shown by several researchers to likely originate from a proto-group which then migrated across the New Guinea highlands likely sometime in the Holocene. Proto-linguistic groups, from an ancient ethnocultural Urheimat, have been found to correlate with genetic ancestral clades around the world: the proto-Indo-Europeans/Yamnaya, the proto-Berbers, the proto-Bantu, the proto-Austronesians, the proto-Tai, etc. --- part of enormous evidence of a strong correlation between genetic ancestry and native/indigenous language in many of the world's population groups. In any case, it was merely an example of a more refined grouping within the Papuan and Melanesian classifications. The most specific grouping is obviously at the individual ethnic group level, but that does not mean higher level classifications are invalid.

As for the list of notable people, I decided to remove it since you made an objection to it. I am trying to compromise and come to a consensus, but you instead are just being infantile at times, and uncooperative.

Every article I cite differentiates between Melanesian and Papuan populations, with two specifically showing a clear difference between Papuan populations where Austronesian languages, culture and genetic admixture is virtually absent, and Austronesian populations of Melanesia who have varying degrees of Austronesian cultural traits, languages and genetic admixture. ALL of the Austronesian groups in Melanesia for example live along the coast or very near it, and NONE of them are inland groups (ALL of the inland and highland groups are Papuan peoples). The Austronesian groups of Melanesia share especially many maritime cultural traits found with nearly all other Austronesian peoples, in addition to other traditions. There is an unquestionable cultural and linguistic divide between Papuans and Austronesians in Melanesia, in addition to a slight genetic and physical one which also has significant overlap in certain populations of Austronesian-speaking Papuans (by contrast, there are no Papuan-speaking people who are culturally and genetically Austronesians, anywhere, in ISEA). Everything I have edited is supported by the scientific research itself, and nothing here is "pseudoscience" apart from much of your claims. The fact this article was created by other uses is pertinent, as there was no issues with it existing previously for long periods. Epf2018 (talk) 04:56, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Epf, you don't seem to understand that you were also edit-warring and could also be blocked for it. In fact, if I had made one more edit, and you had reverted, I would've had you for a violation of 3RR and you very possibly would have been blocked. If I were being more calculating, I would've done exactly that, in order to get you blocked so the rest of us could have edited the article in peace. But I consciously chose to stop and go to ANI before that happened.

You've backed off on your claim of an absolute genetic distinction. That's progress. I think (hope) we can agree now that there is not much of a correlation between genetics and language, per the articles you've been citing. There are speakers of non-AN languages that are non-AN genetically, speakers of AN languages that are non-AN genetically, and speakers of AN languages that have a <20% AN component genetically. That is, there is an AN admixture in New Guinea, and it's found along the coast where the AN migration happened, but it doesn't correspond to language very well apart from that.

So, there is no basis for a genetic distinction between "Papuan" and "Austronesian", since AN-speakers are all >80% Papuan, and the majority are 100% Papuan. Instead, there is a genetic trace of the AN migration in a minority of the AN-speaking population. There's also a genetic European trace in the creole-speaking populations of West Africa, but that doesn't make them ethnically European.

Next we move on to culture. I may have missed it, but have you provided an ethnographic or anthropological source that AN-speakers are culturally distinct from non-AN-speakers? Not a genetic source: you wouldn't accept a linguist or ethnographer as a source for genetic claims,, likewise, a geneticist is not a RS for cultural-anthropological claims. Read WP.RS if you think I'm being obstructionist -- that's WP policy. Sources are only considered RS's for the field of their expertise. A dentist can't publish something about NG in a dental journal and be cited as a RS for the claim, unless they were talking about the state of dental care in NG or something like that.

Historically there is a correlation between the AN migration and modern AN-speakers. There we agree. Only a small minority of AN-speakers may be genetically AN, but they result from the historical migration of AN speakers along the northern coast of NG, a migration that introduced domesticated animals and crops, cultural practices, etc. that have diffused to varying degrees among the pre-AN population. Both languages and other aspects of culture have spread. But why does only the language make someone "Austronesian"? Why not cultural practices? Perhaps because if we defined AN's that as anyone with AN culture, we'd need to make arbitrary distinctions of which aspects of culture to include and which to exclude or the entire island would be defined as ethnically Austronesian. Culture, language, genes and ethnicity have some correlation, but they spread independently of each other too. You can't use one to define another. That is pseudoscience.

None of us here have objected to the presentation of the genetic evidence or a discussion of the importance of AN migration to NG.

Don't accuse me of acting in bad faith because you disagree with me. But that standard, just about everything you've done is in bad faith. (You disagree with me, ergo you're acting in bad faith.) It is possible for people to honestly disagree with you. Sometimes they may be wrong. Sometimes you may be. Sometimes we may be talking at cross purposes. But the fact that someone (or several someones) disagrees with you, and with your interpretation of your sources, does not mean that they're out to get you, or trying to sabotage you (if I'd been doing that, I'd've let you violate 3RR and then asked to have you blocked for it), or otherwise acting in bad faith. When you start ranting, I stop reading. When you cite a ref that contradicts you in the abstract, I don't need to read the whole thing. (I have other things to do.) When you make claims that demonstrate blatant ignorance, like about TNG when I'm quite sure you don't even know which language families are in TNG, I don't need to read half a dozen articles to make sure I've covered everything. You might try citing directly: "so-and-so says X on page Y, proving my point." I can then look at that page and see if it does prove your point. Since you're the one trying to prove that dubious statements are true and should be kept in the article, it's up to you to prove it. Anything that's unsourced or that fails verification can be deleted, by anyone at any time.

"TNG languages, however, are a completely supported..." No two linguistic sources agree as to what the TNG languages even are, so how could there be non-linguistic sources that "completely supports" TNG? AFAIK, the only TNG classifications are Wurm, Foley, Ross, Hammerstroem and Usher. They contradict each other substantially.

When I "debunk" what you say, it's because I think you're misinterpreting or misrepresenting the evidence. Of course I can do that. If you say that AN-speakers are "clearly" AN genetically, and then give a ref that says the majority are 0% AN and a minority are <20% AN, then I'll call you out on making a spurious claim. (Maybe "spurious" a better word for you than "bullshit", though technically they mean about the same thing and normally I prefer to write in colloquial English.) Thankfully, you're no longer making that claim.

"Proto-linguistic groups, from an ancient ethnocultural Urheimat ..." Yes indeed. And no-one here has objected to saying such things in the article. But when you attempt to make OR extentions to modern people being the same as their progenitors (or not even their progenitors, for most of your "Austronesians" in NG), then we're talking something else.

"As for the list of notable people ..." I notice that the section that you "compromised" on (a list of "Papuan" people who are all or nearly all AN-speakers) just happens to be the one that contradicts your POV and supports mine. Now, perhaps that's honest coincidence, but it does smell of bad faith. I originally deleted that section because it contradicted the supposed subject, as defined in the lead (and which you support). But once I rewrote the lead to return "Papuan" to its original anthropological rather than linguistic definition, that was no longer a problem. It is still relevant to you, of course, since you wouldn't want the article to contradict you in the very thing we're arguing about. So your "compromise" only helped you. A true compromise would be in something substantial, such as using the normal definition of the word "Papuan". Just as my backing off on deleting the article was a substantial compromise.

— kwami (talk) 21:58, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Disputed content

@Kwamikagami: and @Epf2018: are locked in a dispute about certain aspects of the article.

Let's start by reverting the article back to the original non-disputed form. In looking at the history, the major overhauls of the article started right after this version of the article. Would you both agree that this is the last stable version before the major changes started happening? Perhaps we can get @SlimVirgin: to restore the article to this neutral point and begin a discussion to obtain consensus for the edits after this point in the article? Dusti^{*Let's talk!*} 20:39, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm fine with that version by Diannaa. If epf is not, we'd need to go back further, to here[3], I'd think. — kwami (talk) 20:58, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Epf2018, please take part in this discussion to decide which version of the article to work from when protection expires. SarahSV ^(talk) 19:12, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

@SlimVirgin: I have taken a less prominent role in the discussion, and totally refrained from any edits of the main article because of the "heat" of the dispute. Looking at the history, I think Kwamikagami has suggested the ideal neutral and safe starting point[4]. —Austronesier (talk) 20:45, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

@Dusti, Kwamikagami, Epf2018, and Austronesier: as Epf2018 has been editing but hasn't responded, we can judge consensus based on the input here. Would the three of you like to see the article restored to the version Austronesier links to above, 21:36, 13 February? Or is restoring to 09:28, 19 April good enough? Would you also like to see the article unprotected? SarahSV ^(talk) 03:06, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

I am completely uninvolved and have no stake in the outcome of the consensus that comes to light here - I was attempting to assist a discussion to gain consensus as to where to start from as a base for the article and begin small steps forward from there. I think that the version that @Austronesier: and @Kwamikagami: have requested is fine. Further, if the article is unprotected and @Epf2018: begins to unilaterally begin editing again after pointedly refusing to participate in any discussion here, I firmly believe that he will need to be blocked for edit warring and POV pushing. Dusti^{*Let's talk!*} 04:49, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

@SlimVirgin: The April 19 version by Dianaa is good enough. I suspect @Austronesier: will agree, since the Feb 13 version had issues he was concerned with (he'd commented about this article being sub-par). As for unlocking, if you or @Dusti: are able and willing to step in if the edit-war picks up again, then I'm fine with that too, but either way's okay. — kwami (talk) 05:17, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

The problem is that I can't do anything unless you all agree. Kwami, is the 19 April version not your own? Austronesier suggested going further back to 13 February. SarahSV ^(talk) 05:31, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

@SlimVirgin: It's pretty much mine, but some of the changes were per Austronesier's suggestions. I suggested the Feb version because I figured that epf would object to the April one, and Austronesier agreed that the Feb version was acceptable, but if epf doesn't object/participate, then I'd prefer the April version that you suggested just above. Assuming Austronesier agrees, that is (he knows more about the topic than I do), so by all means let's wait for him to respond. If he objects, then yes I'm fine with going back to Feb. Or if he still wants to merge into Melanesians, I'm fine with that too. — kwami (talk) 06:56, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

@SlimVirgin and Kwamikagami: I still opt for the 13 Feb version. The 19 Apr version has become quite messy with sourced and unsourced statements, plus misinterpreted data from sources and OR-style conclusions. So I think it is easier to start from tabula rasa rather that to clean up a battleground. As for unlocking, I agree with kwami. —Austronesier (talk) 08:46, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. We could discuss any fixes, tags or cleanup on Talk before making them, if you still don't want to get into editing it directly, so it's not just me pushing things. Or I'll support your edits. — kwami (talk) 09:47, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for all the responses. I've restored the version of 21:36, 13 February and unprotected. Please don't restore the disputed text without consensus. SarahSV ^(talk) 19:36, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Undiscussed page move

The title was moved back and forth several times, starting here, without a WP:RM discussion. If there is still an objection to the move, let me know so that it can be reverted. SarahSV ^(talk) 20:41, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Rewrite lead, definition of "Papuan"

@Austronesier: Okay, first, do you agree that "Papuan", when referring to people rather than languages, is, as the OED puts it, "A native or inhabitant of Papua (or Papua New Guinea); also, a member of the racial type found there." That is, that is has nothing to do with which language someone happens to speak?

I'm thinking of two possible futures of this article. One is to keep it at its current name, and to cover all the people of New Guinea, including recent Malay and Javanese immigrants. The other is to return it to "Papuan people" and focus on the indigenous population but without the confusion ethnography and linguistics that plagues the current version. I'd prefer the latter, personally, as a more focused topic than another "whoever happens to live in X" article, but the advantage of the current title is that it avoids the problem of people reifying linguistic theories as ethnography.

This is the current (old) lead, under the title "Papuan peole":

Papuan people are the indigenous peoples of New Guinea and neighbouring islands, speakers of the Papuan languages. They are distinguished ethnically and linguistically from the Austronesians of Melanesia, speakers of Austronesian languages introduced into New Guinea and nearby islands about 3,000 years ago.

and my last attempt, under the title "People of New Guinea":

The indigenous peoples of New Guinea, commonly called Papuans,[etymology in fn] are Melanesians. There is genetic evidence for three major historical lineages: two original waves of settlement from the Malay archipelago (one along the north coasts and one along the south), perhaps 50,000 years ago when New Guinea and Australia were a single landmass called Sahul, [ed: this may have been Denisovian, need to review] and much later a wave of Austronesian people who introduced the Austronesian languages and pigs into New Guinea and nearby islands about 3,500 years ago, and who left a small but significant genetic trace in many coastal Papuan peoples (though only a minority of Austronesian-speaking Papuans have detectable Austronesian ancestry). Linguistically, Papuans speak languages from the many families of Papuan languages [ed: maybe "so-called", or note that "Papuan" is negatively defined as "non-AN"], which are found only on New Guinea and neighboring islands [ed: this is a circular argument, should be reconsidered], Austronesian languages, and creoles such as Tok Pisin and Papuan Malay.[2][3][4] The people of New Guinea also include more recent immigrants, including the Javanese who make up half the population of the Indonesian side of the island.

What do you object to in the latter, and is there anything you want to keep from the former? Of course, you could just reword the lead here yourself, if you prefer. That might be best. It's not like I'm attached to my version, it was just something to replace the confused earlier lead.

As for the info box, is there anything in there worth keeping, or should it just be deleted? — kwami (talk) 03:54, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

---

@kwami: I will use a separator in this discussion rather than indents, so we can use indents for block quotes and main text suggestions. I get dizzy reading the earlier threads just from their layout (contentwise: flash, reset, deep breath, move on! XD)

I fully agree to restrict the lemma Papuan in this article to mean "the indigenous population of New Guinea" (plus maybe neighboring islands). "Indigenous" of course also including the descendants of the Austronesian migrants that came in 3500 yrs ago. But as your own wording shows: it hard to avoid the extended use of "Papuan" found in linguistics and also in anthropology, viz. as a cover term for the non-AN languages of Melanesia and Wallacea, and a cover term for the highly diverse population of Melanesia and Wallacea prior to the advent of Austronesian speakers, and the genetic traces of this popululation in the current peoples of Melanesia and Wallacea (see e.g. "Papuan Melanesians" in Friedlaender et al). So we should address this usage in a second paragraph of the lead.

Your suggested lead looks largely fine to me. For two statements you should add a source: 1. The two waves of pre-Austronesian populations. 2. The figure of recent migrants/transmigrants in Indonesian Papua.

My suggestion goes:

The indigenous peoples of New Guinea, commonly called Papuans,[etymology in fn] are Melanesians. There is genetic evidence for two major historical lineages in New Guinea and neighboring islands: a first wave perhaps 50,000 years ago when New Guinea and Australia were a single landmass called Sahul, and much later a wave of Austronesian people who introduced the Austronesian languages and pigs into New Guinea and nearby islands about 3,500 years ago, and who left a small but significant genetic trace in many coastal Papuan peoples (though only a minority of Austronesian-speaking Papuans have detectable Austronesian ancestry). Linguistically, Papuans speak languages from the many families of non-Austronesian languages, which are found only on New Guinea and neighboring islands [ed: this is a circular argument, should be reconsidered], Austronesian languages, and creoles such as Tok Pisin and Papuan Malay.[2][3][4] The people of New Guinea also include more recent immigrants, especially on the Indonesian side of the island, where recent migrants comprise up to half of the population.[add source. I have removed Javanese, since people from Sulawesi also heavily migrate to Papua]

The term "Papuan" is also used in a wider sense in linguistics and anthropology. In linguistics, Papuan languages is used as a cover term for the diverse mutually unrelated non-Austronesian language families spoken in Melanesia and parts of Wallacea. In anthropology, "Papuan" is often used to denote the highly diverse population of Melanesia and Wallacea prior to the advent of Austronesian speakers, and the genetic traces of this popululation in the current ethnic groups of these areas.[ref Friedlaender et.al]

I have condensed the two pre-AN waves into one wave (similar as in the Britannica overview). In the later sections, we can expand on the linguistic and genetic diversity. I think Friedlaender et.al. is a fantastic source for the latter if it is read properly without prejudice, misinterpretation, and OR-style detail-picking. Plus you can go into detail about the two pre-AN waves if properly sourced.

Btw, we have much homework with links to this page. I would expect that some of the links "Papuan people" refer to the wider sense as understood in the second paragraph. Anyway "What links here" gives less than 100 articles, and maybe includes template stuff.

What about moving the page title to: "Indigenous peoples of New Guinea"?

Finally: No need for an infobox, which I would only use with ethnic groups sensu stricto. —Austronesier (talk) 09:00, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

That all looks good to me. I'll revise and move. — kwami (talk) 17:45, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

@Austronesier: Done. How does that look? I made a few minor changes to the wording. I think the only significant ones are that I called the "pre-AN languages" (I know that's not the usual phrasing, but it made more sense to me given the context -- feel free to change it back to "non-AN"), I retained the Malay Archipelago as the origin of the first wave of migration and added "from the north" to AN, and I added the word "dominant" to the Papuan genetic signature.

I also moved the article to singular "people", because the plural is occupied with a rd. I've requested the rd be deleted so we can move there. — kwami (talk) 19:08, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

@kwami: Pre-AN could be mistaken to mean "something at an earlier stage before it evolved into AN" (cf. "pre-Germanic IE"). So I prefer the negative term "non-AN languages", or the clumsy, but more informative: "so-called "Papuan" (= non-Austronesian, see below) languages". —Austronesier (talk) 23:47, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

I would hope that anyone who knew that would understand that's not what we meant, but you're probably right. But what about just calling them "old"? I dislike the use of that word ("the oldest language" to mean the most divergent, etc.), but it avoids awkward and wordy phrasing like yours or the one I came up with, "which were already present when the Austronesian languages were introduced". Or, maybe we could word it somehow with "preceding"? — kwami (talk) 00:27, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

"Notable people" section

Austronesier, do you care about this section? It's an OR list, but since we now define "Papuan" to include all indigenous people, there's no longer a factual conflict. It also parallels lists of people in other articles.

(Though one of the people is from Biak, so he might need be removed if we don't count that as "New Guinea".) — kwami (talk) 19:11, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

"Ethnic groups" section

Austronesier, do we want to keep this? It's basically just a navigational template. We could replace it with an actual nav template (though why would anyone want to navigate from one of these articles to another?), or we could just link to a category, and people could see all relevant articles that way. Currently we don't have an equivalent category, though, so it's less work just to leave this.

If we keep it, I see several problems:

1. Only non-AN-speaking peoples are listed. I could see making two lists or columns, distinguished by language family, for those readers who expect the use of "Papuan" mentioned in para 2 of the lead.
2. "Indonesia" is not a coherent list, since the article is about New Guinea. IMO we should have a section on Indonesian NG, since some readers will only be interested in one country or the other, though some entries will duplicate the PNG list.
3. Do we keep Timor, East or West? Are those people "Papuan" in any useful sense? What of the AN-speaking peoples of Timor? Ibid Halmahera, and all the other islands of the eastern Malay Archipelago.
4. What of AN-speakers in the Bismarks and Solomon Islands? Or do we omit all peoples there?

This ties into the "Papuan peoples" nav template at the bottom of the page. IMO that should either be,

1. expanded to include AN-speakers (though where are the geographic boundaries, if we include "neighboring" islands? Within sight of the mainland?) or
2. renamed "Non-Austronesian-speaking peoples of New Guinea".

— kwami (talk) 19:25, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

BTW, Tanga people (AN-speaking, tip of bird's tail) had been cat'd as "Papuan people". Though that cat was for individuals, so I removed it.

Moluccans is a separate article, so I think that should affect which peoples we include here. Not sure we should even include Waigeo, the Biak Islands or D'Entrecasteaux, though Salawati and Kolopom should IMO be included, and maybe Yapen and the islands of Madang Province (Karkar, Long, etc.) and Umboi. Though if we follow out Bismarck Archipelago article strictly, the latter would be excluded. — kwami (talk) 19:50, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

@kwami: The most simple solution would be to expand the lead with a sentence that defines the area to be covered in the article:

The indigenous peoples of New Guinea and neighboring islands, commonly called Papuans,[1] are Melanesians. They are the inhabitants of Papua New Guinea, and of the Indonesian provinces Papua and West Papua.

By this we get a clear boundary with Maluku and the Moluccans to the west, and to the east with the Solomon Islands. This definition is OR-free and simply based on national/provincial boundaries. People of Biak and Raja Ampat are generally called Papuans in Indonesia, and the same holds for the inhabitants of the Bismarck archipelago. I hesitate a bit about Bougainville, not such much in anticipation of the referendum, but because geographically it belongs to the Solomon Islands.

So we don't have to include Papuan-speaking groups of NTT and Maluku. Neither do we have bother to find a western boundary for a genetically defined synchronic entity "Papuans", which is absurd anyway as the genetic trace of the prehistorical "Papuans" fades out gradually the farther you go west, without a sharp boundary.

A list of examples is always fine, and could be divided into Indonesia and PNG, and further into AN and non-AN speaking groups. I haven't made up my mind about the template yet. —Austronesier (talk) 00:23, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

@Austronesier: The problem I have with that is that it suggests that the word "Papuan" is defined by modern political boundaries, which isn't true. (Or at least I don't think it is.) How about a third paragraph in the lead, something like "This article covers all the indigenous peoples of Papua New Guinea and the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua, both on the Papuan mainland and on offshore islands."

If anyone ever creates an article of the people of the Bismark Archipelago, we could reduce the scope accordingly, but that's not likely to happen anytime soon. — kwami (talk) 00:34, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Okay, rearranged the tables. There were 3 or 4 AN-speaking groups. (Not sure which family Maisin is in. It's pretty heavily mixed.) I separated out the Bismark Peninsula, since I suspect that might be a relevant distinction for some readers.

Several of the peoples in the template are AN-speaking. — kwami (talk) 02:38, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

I kept Meriam in the lead to the section, but added "The other Torres Strait Islanders are not clearly either Papuan or Aboriginal Australian." This is a bit OR, and I'd welcome a better presentation, but I find it annoying when people's ethnicity is portrayed as if it were defined by recent political boundaries. If the boundary were along the Australian coast rather than the NG coast, then presumably Kalaw Lagaw Ya would be considered a Papuan language rather than Australian. In Australia, the TSI-ers aren't considered Aboriginal any more than the Inuit and Yupik are considered "Indian" in the US and Canada, so I figured at least a mention of this in an article on "Papuans" would be warranted. — kwami (talk) 03:27, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

@kwami: Putting up a third paragraph is a good idea. I think the definition by political boundaries is not that bad and arbitrary as it may seen. At least in Indonesia, Papuan as an emic macroethnic identity was shaped by recent historical events. This includes the inhabitants of Biak and the Raja Ampat Islands. The Aru Island are quite close and could be considered offshore to New Guinea as well, but by political boundaries and recent history the Aru Islanders are Moluccans.

Kalaw Lagaw Ya is a Pama-Nyungan language, political boundaries not withstanding, and its speakers are Torres Strait Islanders, a well-defined macroethnicity (much better than Papuan anyway). As for the inclusion of the Torres Strait Islanders: they have "Papuan" elements as defined in the second paragraph, plus they live on offshore to New Guinea and close cultural ties with New Guinea mainlanders. So no objections at the moment, but probably we should add a sentence/paragraph explaining why we include them here. —Austronesier (talk) 08:33, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Doh! I forgot they were Pama-Nyungan. Somehow I got it stuck in my head that it as a language isolate.

Yes, I see how the Dutch vs Indonesian occupation could make the political boundaries relevant, so I concede. I don't think the same's true in the east, though, as you noted for Bougaineville. BTW, any idea when the referendum might be held? — kwami (talk) 08:42, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

@kwami: I have second thoughts about retaining Meriam and the Torres Straits Inlanders in this article. They clearly are "Papuan" in the wider collective linguistic and ethnographic sense. For consistency however (the article is called "Indigenous people of New Guinea" after all), I would not include them here, but rather mention them in an article that fully covers the definition of Papuan as defined in the third paragraph, ideally in Melanesians. —Austronesier (talk) 12:13, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

Okay. Let's put them in the 'see also' section. — kwami (talk) 18:41, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

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