Trombetti: The forefather of Indo-Pacific

The work of the Italian linguists Alfredo Trombetti and Riccardo Gatti on their hypothesis of genetic relationship between the languages of the Andaman Islands, Papua New Guinea, Australia, Tasmania, and the Dravidian languages is discussed in detail. It is shown that Trombetti and Gatti had formulated a coherent precursor of the “Indo-Pacific” hypothesis (Greenberg 1971) by 1906.

• Affiliations: 1: São Paulo, Brazil