The Border or Tami languages are an independent family

Language family

A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term 'family' comes from the tree model of language origination in historical linguistics, which makes use of a metaphor comparing languages to people in a...

 of Papuan languages

Papuan languages

The Papuan languages are those languages of the western Pacific which are neither Austronesian nor Australian. The term does not presuppose a genetic relationship. The concept of Papuan peoples as distinct from Melanesians was first suggested and named by Sidney Herbert Ray in 1892.-The...

 in Malcolm Ross

Malcolm Ross

Malcolm David Ross is a linguist and professor at the Australian National University. He has published work on Austronesian and Papuan languages, historical linguistics, and language contact.-External links:**...

's version of the Trans–New Guinea proposal.

Classification

• ? Morwap (Elseng) isolate
• Waris family: Waris
  Waris language
  Waris or Walsa is a Papuan language spoken by about 2,500 people around Wasengla, Amanab District, Sandaun Province, Papua New Guinea, as well as about 1,500 across the border in the Indonesian province of Papua.-Monophthongs:...
  
  , Manem, Senggi (Viid), Punda-Umeda (Sowanda), Waina (Sowanda), Daonda, Auwe (Simog), Amanab
  Amanab language
  Amanab is a Papuan language spoken by 4,419 people in Amanab District, Sandaun Province, Papua New Guinea.-Vowels:-Consonants:-External links:*...
  
  
• Taikat family: Awyi, Taikat
  Taikat language
  Taikat or Arso is a Papuan language of Indonesian Papua....
  
  
• Bewani family: Ainbai, Umeda, Kilmeri
  Kilmeri language
  Kilmeri is a Papuan language of Papua New Guinea near the border with Indonesian Papua. It is not being learned by children....
  
  , Ningera, Pagi
  Pagi language
  Pagi or Bembi is a Papuan language spoken by about 2,000 in five villages in Sandaun Province, Papua New Guinea, near the border with Indonesian Papua....
  
  

Laycock classified Morwap as an isolate, but noted pronominal similarities with Border. Ross included Morwap in Border but noted that they do not appear to share any lexical similarities. However, Morwap data are quite poor.

Pronouns

The pronouns that Ross reconstructs for proto-Border are the following:

I	*ka	exclusive we Clusivity In linguistics, clusivity is a distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person pronouns and verbal morphology, also called inclusive "we" and exclusive "we"...	*kia- ?
		inclusive we Clusivity In linguistics, clusivity is a distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person pronouns and verbal morphology, also called inclusive "we" and exclusive "we"...	*bile ?
thou	*je	you	?
s/he	*ihe	they	*ihe- ?

External links

• Border family Trees in the MultiTree Project at the LINGUIST List.