A journal of the Porquerolles Migration Workshop September 4 to 7, 2007

1. A journal of the Porquerolles Migration WorkshopSeptember 4 to 7, 2007 François Jacquesson

2. Several months ago, Eva Hoogland asked me if I had ideas to help concluding the 2003-2007 OMLL project. • I suggested we make a workshop about « Migrations ». • The OMLL theme (Origin of Man, Language and Languages), a main product of EUROCORES, had two basic orientations. • One was about language abilities and involved chimps, neurologists etc. • The other one was about the spread of languages over the earth and their diversifications – and this orientation seemed to consider that the split of populations into identified ethnic entities was parallel to language split.

3. Jean-Marie Hombert was convinced this was a great topic, and he succeeded in developping it. We certainly have to thank him for his determination. It is thanks to him that this workshop takes place, since it is within the OMLL Project.

4. Two remarkable women were in charge for ESF of the developpement of OMLL. First Adriënne Heijnen (below), and now Eva Hoogland (left). For our workshop, Eva was very helpful, not only when the money question arose, as she modestly puts it, but she also helped in many ways, and was encouraging me all along.

5. Then, for building the Workshop webpages, feeding them, nursing them, and finding everything in time, we all are much indebted to Anne Behaghel. She works in my laboratory, the LACITO of the CNRS. She is also in charge of the Lacito website: http://lacito.vjf.cnrs.fr

6. I had been in Porquerolles, thanks to colleagues who had invited me there for a Summer School about the history of ideas on « Origins of Language and Languages », in August 2006. See: http://htl.linguist.jussieu.fr/biennale I thought the place ideal, if I would ever need a setting for a workshop.

7. For people who would not have noticed it, the sundial was there. Porquerolles was also attractive for Northeners (many OMLL researchers are from Northern Europe).

8. Once again, I realized that the planning of a human meeting had its own secret laws (perhaps its own fantasy). • The list of participants began living somehow by itself. Some said they would come, and came; some others could not come; some inquired if they could come. Some people gently resisted my pestering them, some others just disappeared as spooks are said to do. • I was highly satisfied by the result. I thought these people would make good talks and (a more complicated chemistry) a fine group for discussion and exchanges. • Somehow, observing the secret life of the list was an interesting experience in migration anthropology!

9. La Tour Fondue, harbour for Porquerolles island Sept. 4, 2007 Philippe Ramirez Tristan Bruslé Lolke Van der Veen Eva Hoogland Peter Bakker

10. One highly symbolic photo: Hervé Le Bras before a map. Two inveterate conversationalists: Alf Hornborg (left) and Djamel Kouloughli. Adriënne Heijnen and Andrew Pawley. In the left lower corner (under the hat) is Andrew’s wife.

11. Sessions Philippe Ramirez Andrew Pawley Francesco d’Errico Peter Bakker Djamel Kouloughli Alf Hornborg

12. Solange Rigaud Michael Dunn Ger Reesink Anne Behaghel Pierre Darlu and Alf Hornborg Andrew’s wife Jean-Marie Hombert Lolke Van der Veen Patrick Plumet Hervé Le Bras Andrew Pawley Alain Kihm Martine Vanhove

13. It seemed to me that research into the history of populations is certainly fascinating, but always runs the risk of falling into a well-known, and disgracefull, pitfall: • « We take a population, and we follow that up, right into the first Eve or the first Adam. And we follow the path through the earth changing landscape. » • Apart from the simplistic religious connotations, this is childish. There is no such human group that would be enough identified by a name, or a gene mutation, or any hierarchy of traits. Man is a social animal, and you have to take into account the animal, true, but the societies as well, mobile, equivocal, labile, fusible. • When Aristotle coined this phrase, the « social animal », ζώονπολιτικόν, he left us to weigh the part or role of each (nature or culture), but he rightly insisted that we had to view both of them, preferably as a whole. • This is one of the reasons why I thought reasonable and useful, when the vast OMLL programme reaches its end, to bring the attention back to this fact that is so easily overlooked: even if you can figure out « hordes » or « bands » or « tribes » walking the earth up and down, you will have to be careful not to overlook the ethnography of migrations.

14. Djamel Kouloughli is describing the Arabicization of Maghreb, with many implications on our perception of the « Arab Empire »

15. Discussions, on my opinion, developped wonderfully. The gift of giving an interesting general turn to fine facts is rare, of course, but during those three days, it seems that everybody found an opportunity for asking, commenting, answering. The Nature / Culture antinomy repeatedly came on stage, often discreetly. The final discussion, although certainly too short, was useful and remarkably free. Jean-Marie Hombert vividly and usefully described why he thinks social anthropology is not central to the study of the First Humans - a study which is for him the core of OMLL. Because he thinks that earlier humans were more body than mind, so to speak.

16. I think that the good spirit of the talks and the unconstrained and friendly character of the discussions was especially due to the talent and modesty of our first speakers, Pierre Darlu and Hervé Le Bras. Pierre Hervé

17. I also appreciated the last morning courageous speakers, who described human and social life in high latitude or altitude. Patrick Plumet Their keen sense of detail and taste for fine telling stories was certainly not a bad introduction for the difficult task of Philippe Ramirez, Pascale Dollfus who had to combine local knowledge with wider thoughts, and thus provide fuel for debate.

18. Stories about islanders. But in very different ways. Andrew Pawley and the Pacific Ocean Andrew is telling about the different ways of peopling islands in Melanesia and Polynesia. And, still more interestingly, about what followed. Martine summed up the history of Malta, and showed how different ‘layers’ came to give a very special shape to an Arabic dialect. Martine Vanhove and Malta

19. Here, Alain Kihm seems to listen to himself. On the left, he talks about creolization, on the right, he is Chairman. Alain participated very effectively in the final discussion. He suggested that language is not actually ‘useful’, it just allows us to tell stories, and this certainly is a feat. Peter Bakker told about Gypsies Peter cleverly superimposed two distinct maps, one for ‘ethnic sub-groups’, one for lexicon. Something like an echo of the debate between August Schleicher and Joh. Schmidt.

20. These three men in black are (left to right) Philippe Ramirez, Tristan Bruslé and half of Lolke Van der Veen. Tristan described a number of recent theories about contemporary labour migrations. He also works about the movement of Nepali population, and told us how the reputation of the Gurkhas somehow was an incentive to exile for a great number of Nepali people. Adriënne Heijnen also examined past and present, but for Icelanders. She described how history is modeled into stories that help making Icelandic people look like heroes. This is also a way of asserting the position of those who go abroad – a fairly familiar move.

21. Ger Reesink Ger and Michael described an interesting problem. In New Guinea are found about 1,000 languages. Different authors group them in different ways, because it is impossible to classify them with the classical technique. Therefore, their Omll Project use the ‘Structure’ software in order to find how linguistic features are best grouped. With this method, they can arrive at a reasonable hypothesis, which suggests the center of dispersal was the also the center of the Island. Michael Dunn

22. Lolke and Jean-Marie had two different talks: Lolke about the supposed migration of the Fangs, actually a Bantu-speaking group. Jean-Marie talked about the Bantu migration as a whole. He gave reasons for a route along the northen ‘bank’ of the Great Forest.

23. Alf Hornborg described the Arawak-speaking groups in Amazonia and around. He explains their present distribution as a case of feature diffusion: this is not a massive ethnic move, but sometimes people propagating a culture and sometimes a culture propagating people, without being always identical. During discussions, Alf discovered a similar behaviour with speakers of Arabic. Francesco d’Errico came with Marian Vanhaeren and Solange Rigaud. He advocates the study of both environement and culture for a better definition of the geographic range of early humans. He was also a key participant in the final discussion.

24. I will not write any scientific conclusion here, of course. I sincerely thank all participants, those who gave talks and those who did not. François All photos were taken in Porquerolles during our three-day « Migrations » Workshop.