Yam languages


The Yam languages, also known as the Morehead River languages, are a family of Papuan languages. They include many of the languages south and west of the Fly River in Papua New Guinea and Indonesian West Papua.

Name

The name Morehead and Upper Maro River refers to the area around the Morehead and Maro rivers. Most of the languages are found between these rivers, but the Nambu subgroup are spoken east of the Morehead. Evans refers to the family instead with the more compact name Yam. This name is motivated by a number of linguistic and cultural items of significance: yam means "custom, tradition"; yəm means "is"; and yam tubers are the local staple and of central cultural importance.

External relationships

Ross tentatively includes the Yam languages in the proposed Trans-Fly – Bulaka River family. More recently has argued that this is not justified and more data has to be gathered. Evans classifies the Pahoturi River languages as an independent language family.
Yam languages have also been in intensive contact with Marind and Suki speakers, who had historically expanded into Yam-speaking territories via headhunting raids and other expansionary migrations.

Classification

Internal classification of the Yam languages:
Wichmann did not find a connection between the branches in his automated comparison.

Languages

Yam languages are spoken by up to 3,000 people on both sides of the border in Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. In Papua New Guinea, Yam languages are spoken in Morehead Rural LLG, Western Province. In Papua, Indonesia, Yam languages are spoken in Merauke Regency.
Yam languages and respective demographic information listed by Evans are provided below. Geographical coordinates are also provided for some villages.
See also: Districts of Papua

Pronouns

The pronouns Ross reconstructs for the family are,
;Proto-Yam

Typology

Many Yam languages display vowel harmony, including in Nambu and Tonda languages.

Fauna names

Below are some turtle names in Yam languages, along with names in Suki:
All species are consumed by humans except for Chelodina novaeguineae, which is avoided due to its pungent odor.
Carettochelys insculpta and Elseya branderhorsti are prized for their large sizes, with E. branderhorsti particularly valued for its plastron.
See also: Turama–Kikorian languages#Fauna names.