Papuan languages
Encyclopedia
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 of the western Pacific which are neither 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...
nor Australian
Australian Aboriginal languages
The Australian Aboriginal languages comprise several language families and isolates native to the Australian Aborigines of Australia and a few nearby islands, but by convention excluding the languages of Tasmania and the Torres Strait Islanders...
. The term does not presuppose a genetic relationship
Genetic relationship (linguistics)
In linguistics, genetic relationship is the usual term for the relationship which exists between languages that are members of the same language family. The term genealogical relationship is sometimes used to avoid confusion with the unrelated use of the term in biological genetics...
. The concept of Papuan peoples
Papuan peoples
Papuan is a cover term for the various indigenous peoples of New Guinea and neighboring islands, speakers of so-called Papuan languages. They are often distinguished linguistically from Austronesians, speakers of a language family introduced into New Guinea about three thousand years ago, but this...
as distinct from Melanesians
Melanesians
Melanesians are an ethnic group in Melanesia. The original inhabitants of the group of islands now named Melanesia were likely the ancestors of the present-day Papuan-speaking people...
was first suggested and named by Sidney Herbert Ray
Sidney Herbert Ray
Sidney Herbert Ray was a comparative and descriptive linguist who specialized in Melanesian languages. In 1892, he read an important paper, The languages of British New Guinea, to the Ninth International Congress of Orientalists. In that paper, he established the distinction between the...
in 1892.
The languages
New GuineaNew Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
is perhaps the most linguistically diverse region in the world. Besides the Austronesian languages, there are some 800 languages divided into perhaps sixty small language families, with unclear relationships to each other or to anything else, plus a large number of 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...
s. The majority of the Papuan languages are spoken on the island of New Guinea, with a number spoken in the Bismarck Archipelago
Bismarck Archipelago
The Bismarck Archipelago is a group of islands off the northeastern coast of New Guinea in the western Pacific Ocean and is part of the Islands Region of Papua New Guinea.-History:...
, Bougainville Island
Bougainville Island
Bougainville Island is the main island of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville of Papua New Guinea. This region is also known as Bougainville Province or the North Solomons. The population of the province is 175,160 , which includes the adjacent island of Buka and assorted outlying islands...
, and the Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands is a sovereign state in Oceania, east of Papua New Guinea, consisting of nearly one thousand islands. It covers a land mass of . The capital, Honiara, is located on the island of Guadalcanal...
to the east, and in Halmahera
Halmahera
Halmahera is the largest island in the Maluku Islands. It is part of the North Maluku province of Indonesia.Halmahera has a land area of 17,780 km² and a population in 1995 of 162,728...
, Timor
Timor
Timor is an island at the southern end of Maritime Southeast Asia, north of the Timor Sea. It is divided between the independent state of East Timor, and West Timor, belonging to the Indonesian province of East Nusa Tenggara. The island's surface is 30,777 square kilometres...
, and the Alor
Alor
Alor is the largest island in the Alor Archipelago located at the eastern-most end of the Lesser Sunda Islands that runs through southern Indonesia, which from the west include such islands as Bali, Lombok, Sumbawa, Komodo, and Flores....
archipelago to the west. The westernmost language, Tambora
Tambora language
Tambora is the poorly attested non-Austronesian language of the Tambora culture of central Sumbawa, in what is now Indonesia, which was wiped out by the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora...
, is extinct. One Papuan language, Meriam Mir, is spoken within the national borders of Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, in the eastern Torres Strait
Torres Strait
The Torres Strait is a body of water which lies between Australia and the Melanesian island of New Guinea. It is approximately wide at its narrowest extent. To the south is Cape York Peninsula, the northernmost continental extremity of the Australian state of Queensland...
. The only Papuan languages with official recognition are those of East Timor
Languages of East Timor
The languages of East Timor include both Austronesian and Papuan languages. The lingua franca and national language of East Timor is Tetum, an Austronesian language influenced by Portuguese, with which it has equal status as an official language. The language of the Ocussi exclave is Uab Meto...
.
Several languages of Flores
Flores
Flores is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands, an island arc with an estimated area of 14,300 km² extending east from the Java island of Indonesia. The population was 1.831.000 in the 2010 census and the largest town is Maumere. Flores is Portuguese for "flowers".Flores is located east of Sumbawa...
, Sumba
Sumba
Sumba is an island in eastern Indonesia, is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands, and is in the province of East Nusa Tenggara. Sumba has an area of 11,153 km², and the population was officially at 611,422 in 2005...
, and other islands of eastern Indonesia, most notably the Savu languages
Savu languages
The Savu languages, Hawu and Dhao, are spoken on Savu and Ndao Islands in East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia.-Classification:Cappell noted a large amount of non-Austronesian vocabulary and grammatical features in the Central Malayo-Polynesian languages of East Nusa Tenggara and Maluku, notably in Hawu...
, are classified as Austronesian but have large numbers of non-Austronesian words in their basic vocabulary and non-Austronesian grammatical features. It has been suggested that these may have originally been non-Austronesian languages that have borrowed nearly all of their vocabulary from neighboring Austronesian languages, but no connection with the Papuan languages of Timor has been found.
Most Papuan languages are spoken by hundreds to thousands of people; the most populous are found in the New Guinea highlands
New Guinea Highlands
The New Guinea Highlands, also known as the Central Range or Central Cordillera, are a chain of mountain ranges and intermountain river valleys, many of which support thriving agricultural communities, on the large island of New Guinea, which lies to the north of Australia...
, where a few exceed a hundred thousand. These are Western Dani
Western Dani language
Western Dani, or Laani, is the most populous Papuan language in Indonesian New Guinea. The Swart Valley tribes are called Oeringoep and Timorini in literature from the 1920s, but those names are no longer used....
(180,000) and Ekari
Ekari language
Ekari is a Trans–New Guinea language spoken by about 100,000 people in the Paniai lakes region of the Indonesian province of Papua, including the villages of Mapia and Moanamani. This makes it the second-most populous Papuan language in Indonesian New Guinea after Western Dani. Language use is...
(100,000) in the western (Indonesian) highlands, and Enga
Enga language
Enga is a language of the East New Guinea Highlands that is spoken by approximately 180,000 people in Enga Province, Papua New Guinea. It has the largest body of speakers of any native language in New Guinea....
(165,000) and Melpa
Melpa language
Melpa is a Papuan language spoken by about 130,000 people predominantly in Mount Hagen and the surrounding district of Western Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea....
(130,000) in the eastern (PNG) highlands. To the west of New Guinea, the largest languages are Galela
Galela language
Galela is the most populous Papuan language spoken west of New Guinea, with some 80,000 speakers, or 95,000 if Loloda is counted as a dialect...
in Halmahera
Halmahera
Halmahera is the largest island in the Maluku Islands. It is part of the North Maluku province of Indonesia.Halmahera has a land area of 17,780 km² and a population in 1995 of 162,728...
(80–95,000) and Makasai in East Timor
East Timor
The Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, commonly known as East Timor , is a state in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the nearby islands of Atauro and Jaco, and Oecusse, an exclave on the northwestern side of the island, within Indonesian West Timor...
(70,000). To the east, Terei
Terei language
Terei or Buin, also known as Telei, Rugara, is the most populous Papuan language spoken to the east of New Guinea. There are about 27,000 speakers in the Buin District of Bougainville Province, Papua New Guinea....
(27,000) and Naasioi
Naasioi language
Naasioi is an East Papuan language spoken in the central mountains and southeast coast of Kieta District, Bougainville Province, Papua New Guinea.-Vowels:-Consonants:Nasals can be syllabic....
(20,000) are spoken on Bougainville
Bougainville
-People:*Louis Antoine de Bougainville , French navigator, explorer and military commander*Hyacinthe de Bougainville , French naval officer and son of Louis Antoine de Bougainville-Places:...
.
Although there has been relatively little study of these languages compared with the Austronesian family, there have been three preliminary attempts at large-scale genealogical classification, by Joseph Greenberg
Joseph Greenberg
Joseph Harold Greenberg was a prominent and controversial American linguist, principally known for his work in two areas, linguistic typology and the genetic classification of languages.- Early life and career :...
, 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...
, and 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:**...
. The largest family posited for the Papuan region is the Trans–New Guinea phylum, consisting of the majority of Papuan languages and running mainly along the highlands of New Guinea. These families may represent distinct migrations into New Guinea, presumably from the west. Since perhaps only a quarter of Papuan languages have been studied in detail, linguists' understanding of the relationships between them will continue to be revised.
Statistical analyses designed to pick up signals too faint to be detected by the comparative method, though of disputed validity, suggest five major Papuan stocks (roughly Trans–New Guinea, West
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....
, North, East
East Papuan languages
*Baining family*North Bougainville family — Bougainville*South Bougainville family — Bougainville*Central Solomon family...
, and South-Central
South-Central Papuan languages
-Pronouns:The pronouns Ross reconstructs for the three families are,Proto–Morehead – Upper MaroProto-PahoturiProto–Bulaka River-References:...
Papuan languages); long-range comparison has also suggested connections between selected languages, but again the methodology is not orthodox in historical linguistics.
The Great Andamanese languages
Great Andamanese languages
The Great Andamanese languages are a nearly extinct language family spoken by the Great Andamanese peoples of the Andaman Islands, a union territory of India.- History :...
may be related to some western Papuan languages, but are not themselves covered by the term Papuan.
Greenberg's classification
Joseph Greenberg proposed an Indo-PacificIndo-Pacific languages
Indo-Pacific is a hypothetical language macrofamily proposed in 1971 by Joseph Greenberg. Supporters of Indo-Pacific see it as an extremely ancient and internally diverse family...
phylum containing the (Northern) Andamanese languages
Andamanese languages
The Andamanese languages form a proposed language family spoken by the Andamanese peoples, a group of Negritos who live in the Andaman Islands, a union territory of India. Its validity is disputed...
, all Papuan languages, and the Tasmanian languages
Tasmanian languages
The Tasmanian languages, or Palawa languages, were the languages indigenous to the island of Tasmania. Based on short wordlists, it appears that there were anywhere from five to sixteen languages on Tasmania....
, but not the Australian Aboriginal languages
Australian Aboriginal languages
The Australian Aboriginal languages comprise several language families and isolates native to the Australian Aborigines of Australia and a few nearby islands, but by convention excluding the languages of Tasmania and the Torres Strait Islanders...
. Very few linguists accept his grouping. It is distinct from the Trans–New Guinea phylum of the classifications below.
Wurm's classification
The most widely used classification of Papuan languages is that of Wurm, listed below with the approximate number of languages in each family in parentheses. This was the scheme used by EthnologueEthnologue
Ethnologue: Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International , a Christian linguistic service organization, which studies lesser-known languages, to provide the speakers with Bibles in their native language and support their efforts in language development.The Ethnologue...
prior to Ross's classification (below). It is based on very preliminary work, much of it typological, and Wurm himself has stated that he doesn't expect it to hold up well to scrutiny. Other linguists, including William Foley
William Foley
William Foley is an American linguist and professor at the University of Sydney. He specialises in Papuan and Austronesian languages. He is perhaps best known for his 1986 book The Papuan Languages of New Guinea and his partnership with Robert Van Valin in the development of role and reference...
, have suggested that many of Wurm's phyla are based on areal features and structural similarities, and accepted only the lowest levels of his classification, most of which he inherited from prior taxonomies. Foley (1986) divides Papuan languages into over sixty small language families, plus a number of isolates. However, more recently Foley has accepted the broad outline if not the details of Wurm's classification, as he and Ross have substantiated a large portion of Wurm's Trans–New Guinea phylum.
According to Ross (see below), the main problem with Wurm's classification is that he did not take contact-induced change
Language contact
Language contact occurs when two or more languages or varieties interact. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics.Multilingualism has likely been common throughout much of human history, and today most people in the world are multilingual...
into account. For example, several of the main branches of his Trans–New Guinea (TNG) phylum have no vocabulary in common with other TNG languages, and were classified as TNG because they are similar grammatically
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
. However, there are also many Austronesian languages
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...
that are grammatically similar to TNG languages due to the influence of contact and bilingualism. Similarly, several groups which do have substantial basic vocabulary in common with TNG languages are excluded from the phylum because they do not resemble it grammatically.
Wurm believed the Papuan languages arrives in several waves of migration with some of the earlier languages (perhaps including the Sepik–Ramu languages) being related to the Australian languages, a later migration bringing the West Papuan, Torricelli and the East Papuan languages and a third wave bringing the most recent pre-Austronesian migration, the Trans–New Guinea family.
Papuan families proposed by Wurm (with approximate number of languages)
- Amto–Musan languages (2)
- Burmeso languageBurmeso languageThe Burmeso language, also known as Taurap, is spoken by some 300 people along the mid Mamberamo River in Papua province, Indonesia. It forms a branch of Malcolm Ross's family of East Bird's Head – Sentani languages, but had been considered a language isolate by Stephen Wurm....
(isolate) - Busa language (isolate)
- East Bird's Head languagesEast Bird's Head languagesThe East Bird's Head languages form a language family of three languages in the "Bird's Head" Peninsula of western New Guinea, spoken by only 20,000 people in all....
(3) - East Papuan languagesEast Papuan languages*Baining family*North Bougainville family — Bougainville*South Bougainville family — Bougainville*Central Solomon family...
(36) - Geelvink Bay languages (12)
- Yuri language (isolate)
- Porome languagePorome languageThe Porome or Kibiri language is a Papuan language of southern Papua New Guinea. It was classified as a language isolate by Stephen Wurm, but Malcolm Ross has linked it to the Kiwaian languages, possibly part of the Trans–New Guinea family. There are over a thousand speakers....
(isolate) - Kwomtari–Baibai languages (6)
- Left May languagesLeft May languagesThe Left May or Arai languages are a small language family of half a dozen closely related but not mutually intelligible languages in the centre of New Guinea, along the left bank of the May River...
(7) - Sepik–Ramu languages (104)
- Sko languagesSko languagesThe Sko or Skou languages are a small language family spoken by about 7000 people, mainly along the coast of Sandaun Province in Papua New Guinea, with a few being inland from this area and at least one just across the border in the Indonesian province of Papua . Skou languages are unusual in New...
(7) - Torricelli languagesTorricelli languagesThe Torricelli languages are a language family of about fifty languages of the northern Papua New Guinea coast, spoken by only about 80,000 people. Named after Torricelli Mountains. The most populous and best known Torricelli languages are the Arapesh, with about 30,000 speakers.The most promising...
(48) - Trans–New Guinea languages (598)
- West Papuan languagesWest Papuan languagesThe 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....
(26) - Yalë languageYalë languageThe Yalë language, also known as Nagatman, is a language isolate in northwestern Papua New Guinea. There are about 600 speakers, of whom 5% are monolingual....
(isolate)
Two of Wurm's isolates have since been linked as the
- Lower Mamberamo languagesLower Mamberamo languagesThe Lower Mamberamo languages are a recently proposed language family linking two languages spoken along the northern coast of Papua province, Indonesia, near the mouth of the Mamberamo River....
(2),
and since Wurm's time another isolate and two languages belonging to a new family have been discovered,
- Abinomn languageAbinomn languageThe Abinomn language is a language isolate initially reported by Mark Donohue from Papua province, Indonesia. It is also known as Avinomen, Baso , and Foia. There are about 300 speakers.-Pronouns:The Abinomn pronouns are-External links:*...
(isolate) - Bayono–Awbono languages (2).
Ross's classification
Malcolm Ross re-evaluated Wurm's proposal on purely lexical grounds. That is, he looked at shared vocabulary, and especially shared idiosyncrasies analogous to English I and me vs. German ich and mich. The poor state of documentation of Papuan languages means that this approach is largely restricted to pronounPronoun
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun , such as, in English, the words it and he...
s. Nonetheless, Ross believes that he has been able to validate much of Wurm's classification, albeit with revisions to correct for Wurm's partially typological approach. (See Trans–New Guinea languages.) Ethnologue
Ethnologue
Ethnologue: Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International , a Christian linguistic service organization, which studies lesser-known languages, to provide the speakers with Bibles in their native language and support their efforts in language development.The Ethnologue...
(2009) largely follows Ross.
It has been suggested that the families which appear when comparing pronouns may be due to pronoun borrowing rather than to genealogical relatedness. However, Ross argues that Papuan languages have closed-class pronoun systems, which are resistant to borrowing, and in any case that the massive number of languages with similar pronouns in a family like Trans–New Guinea preclude borrowing as an explanation. Also, he shows that the two cases of alleged pronoun borrowing in New Guinea are simple coincidence, explainable as regular developments from the protolanguages of the families in question: as earlier forms of the languages are reconstructed, their pronouns become less similar, not more. (Ross argues that open-class pronoun systems, where borrowings are common, are found in hierarchical cultures such as those of Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...
and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, where pronouns indicate details of relationship and social status rather than simply being grammatical pro-form
Pro-form
A pro-form is a type of function word or expression that stands in for another word, phrase, clause or sentence where the meaning is recoverable from the context...
s as they are in the more egalitarian New Guinea societies.)
Ross has proposed 23 Papuan language families and 9–13 isolates. However, because of his more stringent criteria, he was not able to find enough data to classify all Papuan languages, especially many isolates which have no close relatives to aid in their classification.
Ross also found that the Lower Mamberamo languages
Lower Mamberamo languages
The Lower Mamberamo languages are a recently proposed language family linking two languages spoken along the northern coast of Papua province, Indonesia, near the mouth of the Mamberamo River....
(or at least the Warembori language; he had insufficient data on Pauwi) are Austronesian languages which have been heavily transformed by contact with Papuan languages, much as the Takia language
Takia language
Takia is an Austronesian language spoken by about 20,000 people on Karkar Island, Bagabag Island, and coastal villages Megiar and Serang, Madang Province, Papua New Guinea. Children are being discouraged from using Takia, and it is being supplanted by Tok Pisin and English...
has. The Reef Islands – Santa Cruz languages of Wurm's East Papuan
East Papuan languages
*Baining family*North Bougainville family — Bougainville*South Bougainville family — Bougainville*Central Solomon family...
phylum were a potential 24th family, but subsequent work has shown them to be highly divergent Austronesian languages as well.
Note that while this classification may be more reliable than past attempts, it is based on a single parameter, pronouns, and therefore must remain tentative. Although pronouns are conservative elements in a language, they are both short and utilise a reduced set of the language's phonemic inventory
Phoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
. Both phenomena greatly increase the possibility of chance resemblances, especially when they are not confirmed by lexical
Lexicon
In linguistics, the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. A lexicon is also a synonym of the word thesaurus. More formally, it is a language's inventory of lexemes. Coined in English 1603, the word "lexicon" derives from the Greek "λεξικόν" , neut...
similarities.
Papuan families proposed by Ross
- Trans–New Guinea (reduced to 466–493 languages)
- ? Extended West PapuanExtended West PapuanThe Extended West Papuan language family is a tentative proposal in Malcolm Ross's classification of Papuan languages. It includes the West Papuan languages of the Indonesian island of Halmahera and the Bird's Head Peninsula of far western New Guinea; the Yawa language isolate on Yapen Island in...
(tentative)- West Papuan languagesWest Papuan languagesThe 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....
(27) - East Bird's Head – Sentani languages (9)
- YawaYawa languagesThe 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...
(1–2)
- West Papuan languages
- Mairasi languagesMairasi languagesThe Mairasi languages are a small independent family of Papuan languages in the classification of Malcolm Ross, that had been part of Stephen Wurm's Trans–New Guinea proposal.-Classification:* Mairasi family: Semimi, Mer, Mairasi, Northeastern Mairasi...
(4) - East Cenderawasih (Geelvink Bay) languagesEast Geelvink Bay languagesThe 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....
(10) - Lakes Plain languagesLakes 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...
(19; upper Mamberamo RiverMamberamo RiverThe 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...
) - Tor–Kwerba languages (17)
- Nimboran languagesNimboran languagesThe Nimboran languages are a small independent family of Papuan languages in the classification of Malcolm Ross, that had been part of Stephen Wurm's Trans–New Guinea proposal...
(5) - Skou languagesSko languagesThe Sko or Skou languages are a small language family spoken by about 7000 people, mainly along the coast of Sandaun Province in Papua New Guinea, with a few being inland from this area and at least one just across the border in the Indonesian province of Papua . Skou languages are unusual in New...
(8) - Border languagesBorder languages (New Guinea)The Border or Tami languages are an independent family of Papuan languages in Malcolm Ross's version of the Trans–New Guinea proposal.-Classification:* ? Morwap isolate...
(15) - Left May – Kwomtari languages (13) (problematic)
- Left MayLeft May languagesThe Left May or Arai languages are a small language family of half a dozen closely related but not mutually intelligible languages in the centre of New Guinea, along the left bank of the May River...
(7) - FasFas languagesThe Fas languages are a small language family of Papua New Guinea. They are generally classified as part of a larger as-yet unproven Kwomtari–Fas family.-Classification:...
(2) - ? KwomtariKwomtari languagesThe Kwomtari languages are a small language family of Papua New Guinea.-Classification:The family consists of the highly divergent language Guriaso, and the two closely related languages Kwomtari and Nai:*Kwomtari stock**Guriaso...
(3)
- Left May
- Senagi languagesSenagi languagesThe Senagi languages are a small independent family of Papuan languages in the classification of Malcolm Ross, that had been part of Stephen Wurm's Trans–New Guinea proposal....
(2) (perhaps related to Sepik) - Torricelli languagesTorricelli languagesThe Torricelli languages are a language family of about fifty languages of the northern Papua New Guinea coast, spoken by only about 80,000 people. Named after Torricelli Mountains. The most populous and best known Torricelli languages are the Arapesh, with about 30,000 speakers.The most promising...
(40–50) (perhaps related to Sepik) - Sepik languagesSepik languages-Pronouns:The pronouns Ross reconstructs for proto-Sepik are:Note the similarities of the dual and plural suffixes with those of the Torricelli languages.-See also:*Papuan languages*Sepik–Ramu languages*Donald Laycock...
(51) - Ramu – Lower Sepik languages (40) (first proposed by Foley)
- Yuat languagesYuat languagesThe Yuat languages are an independent family of six Papuan languages in the classification of Malcolm Ross that had been part of Stephen Wurm's Sepik–Ramu proposal. However, there is no lexical or morphological evidence that the families are related....
(5) - Piawi languagesPiawi languagesThe Piawi languages are a small independent family of Papuan languages in the classification of Malcolm Ross, that had been part of Stephen Wurm's Trans–New Guinea proposal.-Classification:Piawi consists of only two languages:...
(2) (perhaps in Ramu) - South-Central Papuan languagesSouth-Central Papuan languages-Pronouns:The pronouns Ross reconstructs for the three families are,Proto–Morehead – Upper MaroProto-PahoturiProto–Bulaka River-References:...
(22) - Eastern Trans-Fly languagesEastern Trans-Fly languagesThe Eastern Trans-Fly languages are a small independent family of Papuan languages in the classification of Malcolm Ross, that constituted a branch of Stephen Wurm's 1970 Trans-Fly proposal, which he later incorporated into his 1975 expansion of the Trans–New Guinea family as part of a Trans-Fly –...
(4; one in AustraliaAustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
) - ? Yele – West New Britain languages (tentative)
- Yélî DnyeYélî Dnye languageThe Yélî Dnye language, also known as Yele, is the language of Rossel island, the easternmost island in the Louisiade Archipelago off the eastern tip of Papua New Guinea. For now it is best considered a language isolate, but it may turn out to be related to the Anêm and Ata language isolates of New...
(Yele) (isolate) - AnêmAnêm languageThe Anêm language is a language isolate spoken in five main villages along the northwestern coast of New Britain island, Papua New Guinea: Malasoŋo , Karaiai, Mosiliki, Pudêlîŋ, Atiatu and Bolo...
(isolate) - AtaAta languageThe Ata language, also known as Pele-Ata or Wasi, is a language isolate spoken on New Britain island, Papua New Guinea. It may be related to the Anêm and Yélî Dnye isolates in a tentative Yele-West New Britain family. There are about 2000 speakers....
(Pele-Ata, Wasi) (isolate)
- Yélî Dnye
- Baining (East New Britain) languagesBaining languagesThe Baining or East New Britain languages are a small language family spoken by the Baining people on the island of New Britain in Papua New Guinea...
(8) - North Bougainville languagesNorth Bougainville languagesThe North or West Bougainville languages are a small language family spoken on the island of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea. They were classified as East Papuan languages by Stephen Wurm, but this does not now seem tenable, and was abandoned in Ethnologue .The family includes the closely related...
(4) - South Bougainville languagesSouth Bougainville languagesThe South or East Bougainville languages are a small language family spoken on the island of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea. They were classified as East Papuan languages by Wurm, but this does not now seem tenable, and was abandoned in Ethnologue .The languages include a closely related group...
(9) - Central Solomons languagesCentral Solomons languagesThe Central Solomon languages are four distantly but demonstrably related languages of the Solomon Islands, identified as a family by Wilhelm Schmidt in 1908...
(4)
Language isolates
Proposed by Ross. Sorted by location:north Irian
Papua (Indonesian province)
Papua comprises most of the western half of the island of New Guinea and nearby islands. Its capital is Jayapura. It's the largest and easternmost province of Indonesia. The province originally covered the entire western half of New Guinea...
:
- Abinomn languageAbinomn languageThe Abinomn language is a language isolate initially reported by Mark Donohue from Papua province, Indonesia. It is also known as Avinomen, Baso , and Foia. There are about 300 speakers.-Pronouns:The Abinomn pronouns are-External links:*...
(Baso, Foia) - Isirawa languageIsirawa languageIsirawa is a Papuan language spoken by about two thousand people on the north coast of Papua province, Indonesia. It's a local trade language, and use is vigorous. Stephen Wurm linked it to the Kwerba languages within the Trans–New Guinea family, and it does share about 20% of its vocabulary with...
(Donahue links it to Kwerba)
Sandaun Province:
- Yuri languageYuri languageThe Yuri language, also known as Karkar, is a language isolate in the Papuan languages classifications of both Wurm and Ross. There are about a thousand speakers in Papua New Guinea along the Indonesian border.-External links:*...
(Karkar) - Busa languageBusa languageThe Busa language, also known as Odiai , is a language isolate in northwestern Papua New Guinea. There were 244 speakers at the time of the 2000 census.-External links:*...
- Yalë languageYalë languageThe Yalë language, also known as Nagatman, is a language isolate in northwestern Papua New Guinea. There are about 600 speakers, of whom 5% are monolingual....
(Nagatman)
Sepik River:
- Taiap languageTaiap languageTaiap is an endangered language isolate spoken by around a hundred people in the East Sepik Province of Papua New Guinea. It is being replaced by the national language and lingua franca Tok Pisin.The first European to come across Taiap was a German missionary in 1938...
(Gapun), located on what had been an offshore island 4000 BCE
Bismarck Archipelago
Bismarck Archipelago
The Bismarck Archipelago is a group of islands off the northeastern coast of New Guinea in the western Pacific Ocean and is part of the Islands Region of Papua New Guinea.-History:...
:
- Sulka languageSulka languageSulka is a possible language isolate scattered across the eastern end of New Britain island, Papua New Guinea. There are about 3000 speakers.Sulka is very poorly attested. There is some evidence that it might be related to Kol or Baining....
, on New BritainNew BritainNew Britain, or Niu Briten, is the largest island in the Bismarck Archipelago of Papua New Guinea. It is separated from the island of New Guinea by the Dampier and Vitiaz Straits and from New Ireland by St. George's Channel... - Kol languageKol language (Papua New Guinea)The Kol language is a language spoken in eastern New Britain island, Papua New Guinea. There are about 4000 speakers.Kol appears to be a language isolate, though it may be distantly related to the poorly attested Sulka language.-See also:...
, on New Britain - Kuot languageKuot languageThe Kuot language, or Panaras, is a language isolate, the only non-Austronesian language spoken on the island of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. There are about 2,400 speakers, concentrated primarily on the northwest coast of the island...
(Panaras), on New IrelandNew Ireland (island)New Ireland is a large island in Papua New Guinea, approximately 7,404 km² in area. It is the largest island of the New Ireland Province, lying northeast of the island of New Britain. Both islands are part of the Bismarck Archipelago, named after Otto von Bismarck, and they are separated by...
Other
Former isolates classified by Ross:- Burmeso languageBurmeso languageThe Burmeso language, also known as Taurap, is spoken by some 300 people along the mid Mamberamo River in Papua province, Indonesia. It forms a branch of Malcolm Ross's family of East Bird's Head – Sentani languages, but had been considered a language isolate by Stephen Wurm....
(Taurap), in the East Bird's Head – Sentani languages - Porome languagePorome languageThe Porome or Kibiri language is a Papuan language of southern Papua New Guinea. It was classified as a language isolate by Stephen Wurm, but Malcolm Ross has linked it to the Kiwaian languages, possibly part of the Trans–New Guinea family. There are over a thousand speakers....
(Kibiri), in the Kiwai family of Trans–New Guinea - Morwap language (Elseng), in the Border languagesBorder languages (New Guinea)The Border or Tami languages are an independent family of Papuan languages in Malcolm Ross's version of the Trans–New Guinea proposal.-Classification:* ? Morwap isolate...
(on basic lexical resemblances)
Languages reassigned to the Austronesian family
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...
:
- Lower MamberamoLower Mamberamo languagesThe Lower Mamberamo languages are a recently proposed language family linking two languages spoken along the northern coast of Papua province, Indonesia, near the mouth of the Mamberamo River....
(Donohue argues this is a relexified Papuan family; YokeYoke languageYoke is a poorly documented language spoken by about 200 people in the north of Papua, Indonesia. The name is also spelled Yoki, Yauke, Jauke, and it is also known as Bitovondo. It was spoken in a single village in the interior until the government relocated a third of the population to a new...
may not belong) - Kazukuru languageKazukuru languageKazukuru is an extinct language that was once spoken in New Georgia, Solomon Islands. The Dororo and Guliguli languages are supposedly its only known relations. The speakers of Kazukuru gradually merged with the Roviana people from the sixteenth century onward, and adopted Roviana as their language...
(2007) - Reef Islands – Santa Cruz (2007)
Unclassified due to lack of data:
- Amto–Musan languages (2)
- KenatiKenati languageKenati is a poorly documented Papuan language spoken by only about 950 people in Papua New Guinea. It is also known as Aziana, Ganati, Kenathi. Specifically, it is spoken in 3 villages located in the Eastern Highlands Province, Wonenara District of Papua New Guinea.Wurm placed it in his East...
(isolate) - KomyandaretKomyandaret languageKomyandaret is a poorly documented Papuan language that has recently been shown to be one of the Ok languages. It is close enough to Tsaukambo that there is some mutual intelligibility.-References:*Hughes, Jock. 2009. "Upper Digul Survey"...
(isolate) - Maramba (Ethnologue 16 places it in Yuat)
- Massep languageMassep languageMassep is a poorly documented Papuan language spoken by under 50 people in a single village. Despite the small number of speakers, however, language use is vigorous. Donohue et al. conclude that it is definitely not a Kwerba language, as it had been classified by Wurm , and they did not notice...
(isolate) - MolofMolof languageMolof is a poorly documented Papuan language spoken by about 200 people. Wurm placed it as an independent branch of Trans–New Guinea, but Ross could not find enough evidence to classify it....
(isolate) - Momuna familyMomuna languagesThe Momuna languages, Momina and Momuna, also known as Somahai, are a family of two closely related Papuan languages. They were placed in the Central and South New Guinea branch of the Trans–New Guinea family by Wurm, but Malcolm Ross could not locate enough evidence to classify them....
: Momina, MomunaMomuna languageMomuna, also known as Somahai , is a Papuan language of Indonesia....
(Somahai) - SamarokenaSamarokena languageSamarokena is a poorly documented Papuan language spoken in Indonesian Papua. Wurm linked it to the Kwerba languages, but Ross could not find enough evidence to classify it...
(apparently Kwerba) - SaponiSaponi languageSaponi is nearly extinct a Papuan language of Indonesia. It shares half of its basic vocabulary with the Rasawa language, but it's not clear that they are related. Saponi shares none of its pronouns with the Lakes Plain family that Rasawa is part of; indeed its basic pronouns mamire "I, we" and ba...
(shares basic vocab, but not pronouns, with Lakes Plains) - TauseTause languageThe Tause language, also known as Doa or Darha, is a poorly known Papuan language of Indonesia spoken by some 350 people. The Tause only made contact with the outside world in 1982. Their language has been widely reported to be related to the neighboring Lakes Plain languages; however, this...
(Ross placed it provisionally in East Bird's Head – Sentani to encourage research, but does not claim it's related) - Tofamna (isolate)
- UskuUsku languageUsku, or Afra, is a nearly extinct and poorly documented Papuan language spoken by about 20 people, mostly adults, in Usku village, Papua, Indonesia. Wurm placed it as an independent branch of Trans–New Guinea, but Ross could not find enough evidence to classify it.-External links:*...
(isolate)
Unaccounted for:
- Bayono–Awbono languages (2)
- PyuPyu language (Papua New Guinea)Pyu is a language isolate spoken in Papua New Guinea. It has been suggested that Pyu belongs to the Kwomtari–Baibai family, but the evidence is poor. As of 2000, the language had about 100 speakers.-External links:*...
(isolate, has been classified as Kwomtari–Baibai) - There is a cluster of languages in West Papua between the upper Taritatu RiverTaritatu RiverThe Taritatu River is a river in the northern part of the Indonesian province of Papua. During the Dutch colonial era it was known as the Idenburg River. The Taritatu River flows generally westward in the basin north of the island's central mountainous cordillera...
and the PNG border, including Molof, Usku, and Tofamna listed above but also NamlaNamla languageNamla is a recently discovered and poorly documented Papuan language of Indonesia. It may be related to Tofanma, a neighboring language which like Namla remains unclassified....
, MurkimMurkim languageMurkim is an unclassified Papuan language spoken in Western New Guinea, near the unclassified languages Lepki and Kembra. Though spoken by fewer than 300 people, it's being learned by children....
, LepkiLepki languageLepki is an unclassified Papuan language spoken in Western New Guinea, near the unclassified languages Murkim and Kembra.In 2007, on a Papuan language website, a Mark Donohue reported that,However, Ethnologue 16 notes a "possible genetic similarities with Murkim"....
, and KembraKembra languageThe Kembra language is an unclassified Papuan language spoken in Western New Guinea by some twenty persons. It appears to be used by 20% to 60% of the ethnic population and is no longer passed down to children, which makes it an endangered language...
, which do not appear to be related to each other or to other languages in the area. Namla, recently discovered, may prove to be related to Tofamna once more data comes in. Murkim and Lepki show some similarities to each other, though these may not be genetic. - TamboraTambora languageTambora is the poorly attested non-Austronesian language of the Tambora culture of central Sumbawa, in what is now Indonesia, which was wiped out by the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora...
(unclassified, with one lexical item possibly connecting it to languages of Timor)
External relations
Joseph GreenbergJoseph Greenberg
Joseph Harold Greenberg was a prominent and controversial American linguist, principally known for his work in two areas, linguistic typology and the genetic classification of languages.- Early life and career :...
proposed that the Andamanese languages
Andamanese languages
The Andamanese languages form a proposed language family spoken by the Andamanese peoples, a group of Negritos who live in the Andaman Islands, a union territory of India. Its validity is disputed...
(or at least the Great Andamanese languages
Great Andamanese languages
The Great Andamanese languages are a nearly extinct language family spoken by the Great Andamanese peoples of the Andaman Islands, a union territory of India.- History :...
) off the coast of Burma are related to the Papuan or West Papuan languages. 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...
stated that the lexical similarities between Great Andamanese and the West Papuan and Timor–Alor families "are quite striking and amount to virtual formal identity [...] in a number of instances". However, he considered this not evidence of a connection between (Great) Andamanese and Trans–New Guinea, but of a substratum
Substratum
In linguistics, a stratum or strate is a language that influences, or is influenced by another through contact. A substratum is a language which has lower power or prestige than another, while a superstratum is the language that has higher power or prestige. Both substratum and superstratum...
from an earlier migration to New Guinea from the west.
Greenberg also suggested a connection to the Tasmanian languages
Tasmanian languages
The Tasmanian languages, or Palawa languages, were the languages indigenous to the island of Tasmania. Based on short wordlists, it appears that there were anywhere from five to sixteen languages on Tasmania....
. However, the Tasmanian peoples were isolated for perhaps 10,000 years, genocide wiped out their languages before much was recorded of them, and few linguists expect that they will ever be linked to another language family.
William Foley
William Foley
William Foley is an American linguist and professor at the University of Sydney. He specialises in Papuan and Austronesian languages. He is perhaps best known for his 1986 book The Papuan Languages of New Guinea and his partnership with Robert Van Valin in the development of role and reference...
(1986) noted lexical similarities between R. M. W. Dixon's 1980 reconstruction of proto-Australian
Australian Aboriginal languages
The Australian Aboriginal languages comprise several language families and isolates native to the Australian Aborigines of Australia and a few nearby islands, but by convention excluding the languages of Tasmania and the Torres Strait Islanders...
and the languages of the East New Guinea Highlands. He believed that it was naïve to expect to find a single Papuan or Australian language family when New Guinea and Australia had been a single landmass for most of their human history, having been separated by the Torres Strait
Torres Strait
The Torres Strait is a body of water which lies between Australia and the Melanesian island of New Guinea. It is approximately wide at its narrowest extent. To the south is Cape York Peninsula, the northernmost continental extremity of the Australian state of Queensland...
only 8000 years ago, and that a deep reconstruction would likely include languages from both. However, Dixon later abandoned his proto-Australian proposal, and Foley's ideas need to be re-evaluated in light of recent research. Wurm also suggested the Sepik–Ramu languages have similarities with the Australian languages, but believed this may be due to a substratum effect, but nevertheless believed that the Australian languages represent a linguistic group that existed in New Guinea before the arrival of the Papuan languages (which he believed arrived in at least two different groups).
External links
- 2003 bibliography of languages (Papuan and Austronesian) of Indonesian Papua
- Summer Institute of Linguistics site on languages (Papuan and Austronesian) of Papua New Guinea
- Map of Papuan languages (formerly known as the East Papuan family) of island Melanesia
- Bill Foley on Papuan languages
- Dryer's Papuan Language Families and Genera
- Endangered Languages of the Pacific Region