The Yuat 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 six 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 the classification 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:**...

 that had been part 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...

's Sepik–Ramu proposal. However, there is no lexical or morphological evidence that the families are related.

Classification

The Yuat languages are Changriwa, Kyenele

Kyenele language

Kyenele Miyak is a Yuat language of Papua New Guinea.Versions of its name include Keñele, Keyele, Kenying, Bulang, Kenen Birang, Kyenying-Barang....

 (Miyak), Mekmek, Biwat (Mundugumor), Bun. Ethnologue includes otherwise unclassified Maramba in Yuat family.

Pronouns

The pronouns Ross reconstructs for proto-Yuat are:

I	*ŋun	we	*amba
thou	*ndi	you	*mba
s/he	*wu	they	?