The family of Markham languages is a subgroup of the Huon Gulf languages

Huon Gulf languages

The thirty Huon Gulf languages of Papua New Guinea may form a group of the North New Guinea languages, perhaps within the Ngero–Vitiaz branch of that family.-Classification:...

. It consists of 13 language

Language

Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...

s spoken in the Ramu Valley, Markham Valley

Markham Valley

Markham Valley is a geographical area in New Guinea. It is described as "Flatter than a pancake for miles and miles in all directions, until it runs into the mountains that surround it on three sides" and "Always hot, and usually bone dry." The Highlands Highway runs through the valley. The Markham...

 and associated valley systems in the lowlands of the Madang

Madang Province

Madang is a province on the northern coast of mainland Papua New Guinea. The province has many of the country's highest peaks, active volcanoes and its biggest mix of languages...

 and Morobe

Morobe

Morobe may refer to several places in Papua New Guinea:*Morobe Province*Morobe, Papua New Guinea*Morobe Goldfield *Morobe Bay...

 Provinces of Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...

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Shared features

The most definitive work on the Markham languages is The Markham Languages of Papua New Guinea by Susanne Holzknecht, which established a common descent from Proto Huon Gulf. It did so on the basis of shared phonological, morphosyntactic and lexicosemantic innovations.

Although the Markham languages are Austronesian

Austronesian languages

The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia that are spoken by about 386 million people. It is on par with Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Afroasiatic and Uralic as one of the...

, they have had much contact with neighbouring 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...

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