The Ndu languages are the best known family of the Sepik languages of East Sepik Province in northern Papua New Guinea. Ndu is the word for 'man' in the languages that make up this group. The languages were first identified as a related family by Kirschbaum in 1922. Along with the Arapesh languages, Ndu languages are among the best documented languages in the Sepik basin, with comprehensive grammars available for many languages. A diagnostic innovative feature in the Ndu languages is the replacement of the proto-Sepik pronoun *wun ‘I’ with proto-Ndu *an ~ *na.
Languages
is the most populous language, with about 45,000 speakers, though Iatmül is better known to the outside world. There are eight to twelve Ndu languages; Usher counts nine:
Most Sepik and neighboring languages have systems of three vowels,, that are distinct only in height. Phonetic are a result of palatal and labial assimilation of to adjacent consonants. The Ndu languages may take this reduction a step further: In these languages, is used as an epenthetic vowel to break upconsonant clusters in compound words. Within words, only occurs between similar consonants, and seems to be explicable as epenthesis there as well, so that the only underlying vowels that need to be assumed are. That is, the Ndu languages may be a rare case of a two-vowel system, the others being the Arrernte and Northwest Caucasian languages. However, contrasting analyses of these same languages may posit a dozen vowel monophthongs. For Ndu languages, the glottalized low vowel is often written as. This does not signify followed by a glottal stop and another.
Morphology
Ndu languages mark first and second person possessors with -n, and third person possessors with -k. ;Ambulas ;Manambu Ndu languages make use of the general locative case suffix -mb : ;Ambulas ;Manambu Ndu languages have two dative-type case markers, with the forms and meanings varying across languages:
Reconstructed proto-Ndu pronouns by Foley : Note that there is a gender distinction for first-person pronouns.
Lexicon
A phonological reconstruction of proto-Ndu has been proposed by Foley. Lexical reconstructions from Foley are listed below. The homeland of proto-Ndu is located just upstream of Ambunti. ;Proto-Ndu reconstructions by Foley
