The Mek languages are a well established 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...

 spoken by the Mek peoples. They form a branch of the Trans–New Guinea languages in the classifications of 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...

 (1975) and of 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:**...

 (2005).

The Mek languages form three dialect chains (Heeschen 1998):

• Ketengban
  Ketengban language
  Ketengban, also known as Kupel, is a Papuan language of West Papua, near the Papua New Guinea border. Dialects are Okbap, Omban, Bime, Onya....
  
   (including Okbap, Omban, Bime, Onya), Una (Goliath), Eipomek
• Kosarek Yale, Nipsan, Nalca
  Nalca language
  Nalca is a Papuan language of West Papua. Alternative names are Hmanggona, Hmonono, Kimjal . The latter is also used for Korupun-Sela...
  
  
• Korupun-Sela (including Dagi, Sisibna, Deibula)

Mek, then called Goliath, was identified by M. Bromley in 1967. It was placed in TNG by Wurm (1975).