Piawi languages


The Piawi languages are a small family of Papuan languages spoken in the Schraeder Range of the Madang Highlands of Papua New Guinea that had been part of Stephen Wurm's Trans–New Guinea proposal. They are now connected to the Arafundi and Madang languages.
The name "Piawi" is an acronym of three language varieties: Pinai, Aramo/Aramaue and Wiyaw. Pinai and Hagahai are often classified as a single language.

Classification

Piawi consists of only two languages:
Davies and Comrie 1985 noted some pronominal similarities with the Engan languages in Trans–New Guinea, which Ross took into consideration, but no lexical similarities. Comrie believes the family is as isolate. William A. Foley suggested that Piawi and Arafundi may be related, and according to Ross a connection with Arafundi or Ramu appears more promising than Engan. Timothy Usher confirms the link to Arafundi.

Pronouns

Below is a comparison of proto-Piawi, proto-Ramu, Arafundi, and proto-North Engan pronouns, per Ross. Initial nasals are ubiquitous, and indeed are very common throughout New Guinea, so they are in themselves not good evidence of a relationship.
"I""thou""s/he""we two""you two""we""you"
pPiawi*ni-ga*na-ga*nu-ga*ane-ga-li*ni-ga-li*ane-ga, *nane-ga*ni-ga
pRamu*aŋko, *ni*un, *nu*man*a-ŋk-a*o-ŋk-oa*a-ni, *na-ni*u-ni, *nu-ni
Arafundiɲiŋnanndaaciniɲiaŋnuŋ
pN Engan*na-ba*ne-ba*-ba*na-li-ba*ɲa-li-mba*na-ni-ma*ɲa-ma, *ɲa-ka-ma

Both Engan and Piawi have a dual suffix *li.