East Geelvink Bay languages
Encyclopedia
The East Geelvink Bay or East Cenderawasih languages are a language family
of a dozen Papuan languages
along the eastern coast of Geelvink Bay in Indonesian Papua, which is also known as Sarera Bay or Cenderawasih.
The East Geelvink Bay languages are:
Of these, only Turunggare, Barapasi, and Bauzi are known well enough to demonstrate a relationship. The unclassified Kehu language
, spoken between Turunggare and Burate, may turn out to be East Geelvink Bay as well.http://mailman.anu.edu.au/pipermail/papuanlanguages/2007-May/000142.html
, spoken on Yapen
Island, and the East Geelvink Bay languages was tentatively proposed by C. L. Voorhoeve in 1975 in a proposal he called Geelvink Bay. The hypothesis was taken up by Stephen Wurm
, who developed it as part of an initial attempt to classify the Papuan languages
; however, the relationship would be a distant one, and later linguists such as Mark Donohue considered Yawa to be a language isolate
.
Clouse 1997 removed the Lakes Plain languages
of the upper Mamberamo River
in the interior of Papua from Trans–New Guinea, where Würm had placed them, and added them to the Geelvink Bay languages. However, in his 2005 classification based on comparative evidence from pronouns, Malcolm Ross
treats all three groups as separate families, with Yawa tentatively placed in an extended West Papuan
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 a dozen 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...
along the eastern coast of Geelvink Bay in Indonesian Papua, which is also known as Sarera Bay or Cenderawasih.
The East Geelvink Bay languages are:
- Turunggare, Barapasi, BauziBauzi languageBauzi is a Papuan language of the East Geelvink Bay family spoken in the Indonesian province of Papua.Dialects are Gesda Dae, Neao, and Aumenefa. It is reported to use a mode of whistled speech....
–Demisa, AnasiAnasi languageAnasi, also known as Bapu, is a Papuan language of the Indonesian province of Papua....
(Bapu), Burate, Kofei, NisaNisa languageNisa is a Papuan language of the Indonesian province of Papua, on the eastern shore of Cenderawasih Bay. Language use is vigorous....
, Tefaro, Woria
Of these, only Turunggare, Barapasi, and Bauzi are known well enough to demonstrate a relationship. The unclassified Kehu language
Kehu language
Kehu is an unclassified and nearly extinct language of New Guinea.Mark Donohue said that Kehu is "probably a Geelvink Bay language, but noone knows enough about those languages, systematically, to say this with confidence for anyone [sic] beyond Barapasi, Tunggare and Bauzi"...
, spoken between Turunggare and Burate, may turn out to be East Geelvink Bay as well.http://mailman.anu.edu.au/pipermail/papuanlanguages/2007-May/000142.html
Classification
A relationship between YawaYawa languages
The Yawa languages, or Yapen, are a small family of two closely related Papuan languages, Yawa and Saweru, which are often considered to be divergent dialects of a single language...
, spoken on Yapen
Yapen
Yapen is an island of western New Guinea, Indonesia. The Yapen Strait separates Yapen and the Biak Islands to the north. It is in Cenderawasih Bay. To the west is Mios Num Strait between it and Mios Num Island, and the east Kurudu Island. The southeast are the Amboi Islands and the southwest...
Island, and the East Geelvink Bay languages was tentatively proposed by C. L. Voorhoeve in 1975 in a proposal he called Geelvink Bay. The hypothesis was taken up by Stephen Wurm
Stephen Wurm
Stephen Adolphe Wurm was a Hungarian-born Australian linguist.- Biography :Wurm was born in Budapest, the second child to the German-speaking Adolphe Wurm and Hungarian-speaking Anna Novroczky, and was christened Istvan Adolphe Wurm...
, who developed it as part of an initial attempt to classify the 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...
; however, the relationship would be a distant one, and later linguists such as Mark Donohue considered Yawa to be a language isolate
Language isolate
A language isolate, in the absolute sense, is a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical relationship with other languages; that is, one that has not been demonstrated to descend from an ancestor common with any other language. They are in effect language families consisting of a single...
.
Clouse 1997 removed the Lakes Plain languages
Lakes Plain languages
-Pronouns:The pronouns Ross reconstructs for proto-Tariku are,The corresponding "I" and "thou" pronouns are proto–East Lake Plain *a, *do, Awera yai, nai , and Rasawa e-, de-. Saponi shares no pronouns with the Lakes Plain family; indeed its pronouns mamire "I, we" and ba "thou" are remenincent of...
of the upper Mamberamo River
Mamberamo River
The Mamberamo is a large river on the island of New Guinea, in the Indonesian province of Papua. It is the widest river in Indonesia.The source of the river is formed from the confluences of its upper tributaries, the Tariku and Taritatu Rivers...
in the interior of Papua from Trans–New Guinea, where Würm had placed them, and added them to the Geelvink Bay languages. However, in his 2005 classification based on comparative evidence from pronouns, 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:**...
treats all three groups as separate families, with Yawa tentatively placed in an extended West Papuan
West Papuan languages
The West Papuan languages are a hypothetical language family of about two dozen Papuan languages of the Bird's Head Peninsula of far western New Guinea and the island of Halmahera, spoken by about 220 000 people in all....
family.
Pronouns
The pronouns Ross reconstructs for proto–East Geelvink Bay are,| I | *e | we | *i |
| thou | *o | you | *u |
| s/he | *a | they | ? |