Papuan languages


The Papuan languages are the non-Austronesian and non-Australian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea, and neighbouring islands, by around 4 million people. It is a strictly geographical grouping, and does not imply a genetic relationship. The concept of Papuan peoples as distinct from Austronesian-speaking Melanesians was first suggested and named by Sidney Herbert Ray in 1892.
New Guinea is 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 any other languages, plus many language isolates. The majority of the Papuan languages are spoken on the island of New Guinea, with a number spoken in the Bismarck Archipelago, Bougainville Island and the Solomon Islands to the east, and in Halmahera, Timor and the Alor archipelago to the west. The westernmost language, Tambora in Sumbawa, is extinct. One Papuan language, Meriam, is spoken within the national borders of Australia, in the eastern Torres Strait. The only Papuan languages with official recognition are those of East Timor.
Several languages of Flores, Sumba, and other islands of eastern Indonesia 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. In general, the Central–Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages are marked by a significant historical Papuan influence, lexically, grammatically, and phonologically, and this is responsible for much of the diversity of the Austronesian language family.

Speaker numbers

Most Papuan languages are spoken by hundreds to thousands of people; the most populous are found in the New Guinea highlands, where a few exceed a hundred thousand. These include Western Dani and Ekari in the western highlands, and Enga, Huli, and Melpa in the eastern highlands. To the west of New Guinea, the largest languages are Makasae in East Timor and Galela in Halmahera. To the east, Terei and Naasioi are spoken on Bougainville.

History of classification

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, Stephen Wurm, and Malcolm Ross. 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. The various high-level 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 ; long-range comparison has also suggested connections between selected languages, but again the methodology is not orthodox in historical linguistics.
The Great Andamanese languages 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-Pacific phylum containing the Andamanese languages, all Papuan languages, and the Tasmanian languages, but not the Australian Aboriginal languages. Very few linguists accept his grouping. It is distinct from the Trans–New Guinea phylum of the classifications below.

Wurm (1975)

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 Ethnologue prior to Ross's classification. 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 A. Foley, have suggested that many of Wurm's phyla are based on areal features and structural similarities, and accept only the lowest levels of his classification, most of which he inherited from prior taxonomies. Foley 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, the main problem with Wurm's classification is that he did not take contact-induced change into account. For example, several of the main branches of his Trans–New Guinea phylum have no vocabulary in common with other Trans–New Guinea languages, and were classified as Trans–New Guinea because they are similar grammatically. However, there are also many Austronesian languages that are grammatically similar to Trans–New Guinea languages due to the influence of contact and bilingualism. Similarly, several groups that do have substantial basic vocabulary in common with Trans–New Guinea languages are excluded from the phylum because they do not resemble it grammatically.
Wurm believed the Papuan languages arrived in several waves of migration with some of the earlier 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.
Two of Wurm's isolates have since been linked as the
and since Wurm's time another isolate and two languages belonging to a new family have been discovered,
Foley summarized the state of the literature. Besides Trans–New Guinea and families possibly belonging in TNG, he accepted the proposals for,
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 restricts this approach largely to pronouns. 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. Ethnologue largely follows Ross.
It has been suggested that the families that 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 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 that have no close relatives to aid in their classification.
Ross also found that the Lower Mamberamo languages are Austronesian languages that have been heavily transformed by contact with Papuan languages, much as the Takia language has. The Reef Islands – Santa Cruz languages of Wurm's East Papuan 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. Both phenomena greatly increase the possibility of chance resemblances, especially when they are not confirmed by lexical similarities.
;Language isolates
Sorted by location
north Irian:
Sandaun Province:
Sepik River:
Bismarck Archipelago:
;Other
Former isolates classified by Ross:
Languages reassigned to the Austronesian family:
Unclassified due to lack of data:
Unaccounted for:
accepts the following 109 groups as coherent Papuan families, based on computational analyses performed by the Automated Similarity Judgment Program combined with Harald Hammarström's classification. Some of the groups could turn out to be related to each other, but Wichmann lists them as separate groups pending further research.
9 families have been broken up into separate groups in Wichmann's classification, which are:
  1. West Timor-Alor-Pantar / East Timor-Bunaq
  2. South Bougainville
  3. Wiru
  4. Namla-Tofanma
  5. ex-Pauwasi-1
  6. ex-Nuclear Trans New Guinea-1
  7. Mombum
  8. Marindic
  9. ex-Nuclear Trans New Guinea-2
  10. Inland Gulf
  11. ex-Nuclear Trans New Guinea-3
  12. ex-Nuclear Trans New Guinea-4
  13. ex-Nuclear Trans New Guinea-5
  14. Goilalan
  15. ex-Nuclear Trans New Guinea-6
  16. Kamula / Awin–Pa / Bosavi / East Strickland
  17. ex-Dibiyaso-Doso-Turumsa-1
  18. Angan
  19. Duna-Bogaya
  20. ex-Nuclear Trans New Guinea-7
  21. Sepik / Ndu / Walio
  22. Greater Kwerba / Tor-Orya
  23. Nimboran / Kapauri / Border
  24. Elseng
  25. North Halmahera
  26. Yalë
  27. ex-Dibiyaso-Doso-Turumsa-2
  28. Kwomtari
  29. ex-Nuclear Trans New Guinea-8
  30. ex-Morehead-Wasur-1
  31. Hatam-Mansim
  32. Mor
  33. Pahoturi / Eastern Trans-Fly
  34. ex-Nuclear Trans New Guinea-9
  35. Yareban / Mailuan
  36. Dem
  37. ex-Nuclear Trans New Guinea-10
  38. ex-Nuclear Trans New Guinea-11
  39. West Bomberai
  40. ex-Nuclear Trans New Guinea-12
  41. Koiarian
  42. Kaki Ae
  43. Moraori
  44. Mawes
  45. Kolopom
  46. Bulaka River
  47. Molof
  48. Yuat-Maramba
  49. Kaure-Narau
  50. Tirio
  51. Kayagar
  52. Suki-Gogodala / Waia / Kiwaian
  53. ex-Nuclear Trans New Guinea-13
  54. Fasu-East Kutubu
  55. Pawaia-Teberan
  56. Turama-Kikori
  57. North Bougainville
  58. Eleman
  59. Mairasi
  60. Touo
  61. ex-Kwalean-1
  62. Tanahmerah
  63. Savosavo
  64. Bilua
  65. Manubaran
  66. Kuot
  67. Burmeso
  68. Amto-Musan / Left May / Busa
  69. ex-Sentanic-1
  70. ex-Lower Sepik-Ramu-1
  71. Taiap
  72. ex-Sko-1
  73. ex-Lower Sepik-Ramu-2
  74. Geelvink Bay
  75. Konda-Yahadian
  76. South Bird's Head family / Inanwatan
  77. Nuclear Torricelli
  78. Urim
  79. Ata
  80. Monumbo
  81. ex-Sentanic-2
  82. ex-Lower Sepik-Ramu-3
  83. Yawa
  84. ex-Kwalean-2
  85. Lavukaleve
  86. Anem
  87. ex-Morehead-Wasur-2
  88. Papi
  89. Mpur
  90. Abun / Maybrat / West Bird's Head
  91. Lakes Plain
  92. Pyu
  93. ex-Biksi-1
  94. ex-Sko-2
  95. ex-Biksi-2
  96. Yeli Dnye
  97. Lepki–Murkim
  98. ex-Pauwasi-2
  99. East Bird's Head
  100. Kosare
  101. Usku
  102. ex-Nuclear Trans New Guinea-14
  103. ex-Nuclear Trans New Guinea-15
  104. Senagi
  105. Piawi
  106. ex-Lower Sepik-Ramu-4
  107. ex-Lower Sepik-Ramu-5
  108. ex-Nuclear Trans New Guinea-16

    Palmer (2018)

Bill Palmer et al. propose 43 independent families and 37 language isolates in the Papuasphere, comprising a total of 862 languages. A total of 80 independent groups are recognized. While Pawley & Hammarström's internal classification of Trans-New Guinea largely resembles a composite of Usher's and Ross' classifications, Palmer et al. do not address the more tentative families that Usher proposes, such as Northwest New Guinea.
The coherence of the South Bird's Head, East Bird's Head, Pauwasi, Kwomtari, and Central Solomons families are uncertain, and hence are marked below as "tentative."
Papuan independent language families
Papuan isolates and unclassified languages
;Bird's Head Peninsula / Bomberai Peninsula
;North coast / hinterland
;Central West Papua
;Sepik-Ramu basin
;Gulf of Papua / hinterland
;Bismarck Archipelago
;Rossel Island
Glottolog 4.0, based partly on Usher, recognizes 70 independent families and 55 isolates.
;Families
;Isolates
Timothy Usher and Edgar Suter, with the advice of Papuan researchers such as William Croft, Matthew Dryer, John Lynch, Andrew Pawley, and Malcolm Ross, have reconstructed low-level constituents of Papuan language families to verify which purported members truly belong to them. In many cases Usher and Suter have created new names for the member families to reflect their geographic location. Much of their classification is accepted by Glottolog. As of 2020, the following families are identified:
In addition, poorly attested Karami remains unclassified.
Extinct Tambora and the East Papuan languages have not been addressed, except to identify Yele as an Austronesian language.

External relations

proposed that the Andamanese languages off the coast of Burma are related to the Papuan or West Papuan languages. Stephen 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 Andamanese and Trans-New Guinea, but of a substratum from an earlier migration to New Guinea from the west.
Greenberg also suggested a connection to the Tasmanian languages. 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 A. Foley noted lexical similarities between R. M. W. Dixon's 1980 reconstruction of proto-Australian 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 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.

Typology

The West Papuan, Lower Mamberamo, and most Torricelli languages are all left-headed, as well as the languages of New Britain and New Ireland. These languages all have SVO word order, with the exception of the language isolate Kuot, which has VSO word order. All other Papuan languages are right-headed.
Tonal Papuan languages include the Sko, Lepki, Kaure, Kembra, Lakes Plain, and Keuw languages.

General references

*