ABSTRACT
Degrees of superficial similarity or difference, whether in archaeology or linguistics, do not necessarily correspond with degrees of relationship between artefact types or between languages. This chapter explores G. W. Grace's notion of aberrancy and show that aberrancy does not necessarily correlate with genetic distance and, conversely, that superficial similarity does not necessarily correlate with genetic closeness. It focuses on Southern Melanesia--the area comprising New Caledonia, including the Loyalty Islands, along with the Tafea district of Vanuatu. The languages of Santa Cruz and the Reef Islands in Solomon Islands are the modern nonAustronesian languages geographically closest to those of Southern Melanesia; but they are over 1000 km away, and in between Reefs-Santa Cruz and Southern Melanesia almost 100 Austronesian languages are spoken. Research on the languages of Southern Melanesia is continuing; unfortunately, as in much of Melanesia, there are too many languages and too few linguists working on them.
