Trans–New Guinea languages
Trans–New Guinea | |
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Geographic distribution | New Guinea, East Timor, East Nusa Tenggara (Alor, Pantar) |
Linguistic classification | One of the world's primary language families |
Proto-language | Proto-Trans–New Guinea |
Subdivisions |
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ISO 639-5 | ngf |
Glottolog | None nucl1709 (Nuclear Trans–New Guinea, partial overlap) |
The extent of various proposals for Trans–New Guinea.
Families accepted by Usher[1]
Other families proposed by Ross (2005)
Other Papuan languages
Austronesian languages
Uninhabited |
Trans–New Guinea (TNG) is an extensive family of Papuan languages spoken on the island of New Guinea and neighboring islands, a region corresponding to the country Papua New Guinea as well as parts of Indonesia.
Trans–New Guinea is perhaps the third-largest language family in the world by number of languages. The core of the family is considered to be established, but its boundaries and overall membership are uncertain. The languages are spoken by around 3 million people.[2] There have been several main proposals as to its internal classification.
History of the proposal
Although Papuan languages for the most part are poorly documented, several of the branches of Trans–New Guinea have been recognized for some time. The
The precursor of the Trans–New Guinea family was
In 1975, Wurm accepted Voorhoeve and McElhanon's suspicions about further connections, as well as Z'graggen's work, and postulated additional links to, among others, the languages of the island of
Because grammatical typology is readily borrowed—many of the Austronesian languages in New Guinea have grammatical structures similar to their Papuan neighbors, for example, and conversely many Papuan languages resemble typical Austronesian languages typologically—other linguists were skeptical. William A. Foley rejected Wurm's and even some of Voorhoeve's results, and he broke much of TNG into its constituent parts: several dozen small but clearly valid families, plus a number of apparent isolates.
In 2005, Malcolm Ross published a draft proposal re-evaluating Trans–New Guinea, and found what he believed to be overwhelming evidence for a reduced version of the phylum, based solely on lexical resemblances, which retained as much as 85% of Wurm's hypothesis, though some of it tentatively.
The strongest lexical evidence for any language family is shared
Ross also included in his proposal several better-attested families for non-pronominal evidence, despite a lack of pronouns common to other branches of TNG, and he suggested that there may be other families that would have been included if they had been better attested. Several additional families are only tentatively linked to TNG. Because the boundaries of Ross's proposal are based primarily on a single parameter, the pronouns, all internal structure remains tentative.
The languages
Most TNG languages are spoken by only a few thousand people, with only seven (
The greatest linguistic diversity in Ross's Trans–New Guinea proposal, and therefore perhaps the location of the proto-Trans–New Guinea homeland, is in the interior highlands of Papua New Guinea, in the central-to-eastern New Guinea cordillera where Wurm first posited his East New Guinea Highlands family. Indonesian
Ross speculates that the TNG family may have spread with the high population densities that resulted from the domestication of
Classification
Wurm (1975)
The classification here follows Wurm and includes some later modifications to his 1975 proposal.[6] Wurm identifies the subdivisions of his Papuan classification as families (on the order of relatedness of the
Trans-New Guinea phylum (Wurm 1975)
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('Family-level' groups are listed in boldface)
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Foley (2003)
As of 2003, William A. Foley accepted the core of TNG: "The fact, for example, that a great swath of languages in New Guinea from the Huon Peninsula to the highlands of Irian Jaya mark the object of a transitive verb with a set of verbal prefixes, a first person singular in /n/ and second person singular in a velar stop, is overwhelming evidence that these languages are all genetically related; the likelihood of such a system being borrowed vanishingly small."[7] He considered the relationship between the Finisterre–Huon, Eastern Highlands (Kainantu–Gorokan), and Irian Highlands (Dani – Paniai Lakes) families (and presumably some other smaller ones) to be established, and he said that it is "highly likely" that the Madang family belongs as well. He considered it possible, but not yet demonstrated, that the Enga, Chimbu, Binandere, Angan, Ok, Awyu, Asmat (perhaps closest to Ok and Awyu), Mek, Sentani, and the seven small language families of the tail of Papua New Guinea (Koiarian, Goilalan, etc., which he maintains have not been shown to be closely related to each other) may belong to TNG as well.
Ross (2005)
Irian Jaya, W to E South Bird's Head West Trans–New Guinea Kaure–Kapori Pauwasi Mek Asmat–Kamoro Awyu–Dumut Ok Kayagar Marind Kolopom | PNG highlands, W to E Awin–Pa East Strickland Duna Bosavi Engan West Kutubuan East Kutubuan Chimbu–Wahgi Kainantu–Goroka Madang Finisterre–Huon | Southern PNG, E to W Binanderean Southeast Papuan Angan Eleman Teberan Turama–Kikorian Kiwai–Porome Inland Gulf Gogodala–Suki Tirio isolates* |
Ross does not use specialized terms for different levels of classification as Donald Laycock and Stephen Wurm did. In the list given here, the uncontroversial families that are accepted by Foley and other Papuanists and that are the building blocks of Ross's TNG are printed in boldface. Language isolates are printed in italics.
Ross removed about 100 languages from Wurm's proposal, and only tentatively retained a few dozen more, but in one instance he added a language, the isolate Porome.
Ross did not have sufficient evidence to classify all Papuan groups. In addition, the classification is based on a single feature – shared pronouns, especially 1sg and 2sg – and thus is subject to false positives as well as to missing branches that have undergone significant sound changes, since he does not have the data to establish regular sound correspondences.
- Unclassified Wurmian languages
Although Ross based his classification on pronoun systems, many languages in New Guinea are too poorly documented for even this to work. Thus there are several isolates that were placed in TNG by Wurm but that cannot be addressed by Ross's classification. A few of them (Komyandaret, Samarokena, and maybe Kenati) have since been assigned to existing branches (or ex-branches) of TNG, whereas others (Massep, Momuna) continue to defy classification.
- Kainantu?)
- Komyandaret (→ Greater Awyu)
- Massep isolate
- Molof isolate
- Momunafamily (2)
- Samarokena (→ Kwerba)
- Tofamnaisolate
- Usku isolate
- Reclassified Wurmian languages
Ross removed 95 languages from TNG. These are small families with no pronouns in common with TNG languages, but that are typologically similar, perhaps due to long periods of contact with TNG languages.
- Border and Morwap (Elseng), as an independent Border family (15 languages)
- Isirawa (Saberi), as a language isolate (though classified as Kwerba by Clouse, Donohue & Ma 2002)[8]
- Lakes Plain, as an independent Lakes Plain family (19)
- Mairasi, as an independent Mairasi family (4)
- Nimboran, as an independent Nimboran family (5)
- Piawi, as an independent Piawi family (2)
- Senagi, as an independent Senagi family (2)
- Sentani (4 languages), within an East Bird's Head – Sentanifamily
- Tor and Kwerba, joined as a Tor–Kwerbafamily (17)
- Trans-Fly – Bulaka River is broken into five groups: three remaining (tentatively) in TNG (Kiwaian, Moraori, Tirio), plus the independent South-Central Papuan and Eastern Trans-Flyfamilies (22 and 4 languages).
Trans–New Guinea phylum (Ross 2005)
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Pawley and Hammarström (2018)
Andrew Pawley and Harald Hammarström (2018) accept 35 subgroups as members of Trans-New Guinea.[9][4]
Trans–New Guinea phylum (Pawley and Hammarström 2018)
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Groups and isolates considered by Pawley and Hammarström (2018) as having weaker or disputed claims to membership in Trans-New Guinea (some of which they suggest may ultimately turn out to be Trans-New Guinea, but further evidence is needed):[9]
- Bayono-Awbono(2)
- Komolom (Mombum) (2)
- Mairasi (3)
- Pauwasi (5)
- Pawaian(isolate)
- Sentanic(4)
- South Bird's Head (12)
- Tanah Merah(isolate)
- Teberan (2)
- Timor-Alor-Pantar(20+)
- Damal) (isolate)
Groups and isolates sometimes classified as Trans-New Guinea, but rejected by Pawley and Hammarström (2018) as Trans-New Guinea:[9]
- Dem (isolate)
- Eleman (5)
- Kaki Ae (isolate)
- Kamula (isolate)
- Kaure-Narau(2)
- Mor (isolate)
- Porome (isolate)
- Purari (isolate)
Glottolog 4.0 (2019)
Glottolog 4.0 (2019), of which Hammarström is one of the editors, accepts 10 groups as part of the Nuclear Trans–New Guinea family.[10]
- Madang (106)
- Finisterre-Huon(61)
- Asmat-Awyu-Ok(49)
- Kainantu-Goroka(28)
- Chimbu-Wahgi(17)
- Enga-Kewa-Huli(14)
- Dani(13)
- Greater Binanderean (13)
- Mek (8)
- Paniai Lakes (5)
Usher (2020)
Timothy Usher has reconstructed lower-level constituents of Trans–New Guinea to verify, through the establishment of regular sound changes, which purported members truly belong to it, and to determine their subclassification. In many cases Usher has created new names for the member families to reflect their geographic location. Much of his classification is accepted by Glottolog (though his names are not, as Glottolog invents its own names). As of 2020, his classification is as follows, including correspondences to the names in earlier classifications. He expects to expand the membership of the family as reconstruction proceeds.[11]
Trans–New Guinea phylum (Usher 2020)
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These branches may cluster together (the southwestern branches, for example, may group together), but the details are as yet unclear. |
The families from the Ross and Glottolog classifications that are not included are Kaure, Pauwasi, Engan, Chimbu–Wahgi, Madang, Eleman, Kiwaian, Binanderean, Goilalan, and the several Papuan Gulf families. Usher only includes families that have a regular reflex of the 2sg pronoun, so there may be additional TNG families that have changed their pronouns.
Dryer (2022)
According to Dryer (2022), evidence for membership in Trans-New Guinea based solely on pronouns and 'louse' is not considered to be sufficient, since they are more likely to be widespread areal lexical forms (Wanderworts).[12]
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On the other hand, Pawley and Hammarström (2018) do not consider
"Borderline" groups that show somewhat more similarities with "Trans–New Guinea" than other non-Trans–New Guinea groups:
South Bird's Head, Timor–Alor–Pantar, and Teberan are not considered by Pawley and Hammarström (2018) to be Trans–New Guinea subgroups.
The following groups display few Trans–New Guinea basic vocabulary items and are hence less likely to be Trans–New Guinea:
However, Dryer (2022) notes that this preliminary quantitative analysis only gives a rough estimate of the groups that may or may not belong within Trans–New Guinea, and that similarities may be due to loanwords, areal influences, and so forth.
Lexical semantics
A number of colexification patterns (called 'semantic conflations' by Donald Laycock), particularly in the nominal domain, are commonly found among Trans–New Guinea languages:[9]
- [man, husband]
- [woman, wife]
- [bird, bat]
- [hair, fur, feather, leaf]
- [tree, firewood, fire]
- [water, river]
- [bark, skin of animal, peel or skin of fruit]
- [bark, skin, body]
- [egg, fruit, seed; some other round objects, e.g. kidney, eye, heart]
- [hand, foreleg of quadruped, wing]
- [heart, seat of emotions]
- [blood, red]
- [garden, work], [to make gardens, to work]
- [joint, elbow, knee]
- [milk, sap, semen, white of egg, bone marrow]
- [nose, face]
- [teeth, internal mouth]
- [leg, foot, hindleg]
- [finger, toe]
- [father, owner; mother, owner]
Proto-language
See also
References
- ^ NewGuineaWorld Trans–New Guinea Archived 6 September 2014 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Papuan". www.languagesgulper.com. Retrieved 2017-10-15.
- ^ Harald Hammarström (2012) "Pronouns and the (Preliminary) Classification of Papuan languages", Journal of the Linguistic Society of Papua New Guinea
- ^ ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.
- ^ Roger Blench (2017) "Things your classics master never told you: a borrowing from Trans New Guinea languages into Latin", McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research
- ^ Wurm's classification at MultiTree
- ^ DELP: Papuan languages
- ^ Clouse, Duane; Donohue, Mark; Ma, Felix (2002). "Survey report of the north coast of Irian Jaya". SIL Electronic Survey Reports. 078.
- ^ ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.
- Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
- ^ "NewGuineaWorld, Trans–New Guinea". Archived from the original on 2016-09-09. Retrieved 2017-12-10.
- ^ Dryer, Matthew S. (2022). Trans-New Guinea IV.2: Evaluating Membership in Trans-New Guinea.
Bibliography
- OCLC 41025250.
- OCLC 67292782.
- OCLC 67292782.
- OCLC 37096514. Archived from the originalon 2010-06-20. Retrieved 2009-08-13.
External links
- TransNewGuinea.org - database of the languages of New Guinea (by Simon Greenhill)
- Timothy Usher's Newguineaworld site Archived 2021-11-18 at the Wayback Machine