West Papuan languages
| West Papuan | |
|---|---|
| (proposed) | |
| Geographic distribution | Halmahera (North Maluku) and Bird's Head Peninsula (West Papua and Southwest Papua) |
| Linguistic classification | One of the world's primary language families |
| Subdivisions |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | None |
 Distribution of the West Papuan languages | |
The West Papuan languages are a proposed language family of about two dozen non-Austronesian languages of the Bird's Head Peninsula (Vogelkop or Doberai Peninsula) of far western New Guinea, the island of Halmahera and its vicinity, spoken by about 220,000 people in all. It is not established if they constitute a proper linguistic family or an areal network of genetically unrelated families.
The best known "West Papuan" language is Ternate (50,000 native speakers) of the island of the same name, which is a regional lingua franca. Along with neighboring Tidore, they were the languages of the rival medieval Ternate and Tidore sultanates, famous for their role in the spice trade.
Origins and contact
The North Halmahera (NH) languages, spoken in the Maluku Islands, share some structural similarities with certain Papuan families in Melanesia, which was noted as far back as 1900.[1]: 193 In addition, there is a number of lexical and morphemic correspondences between NH and West Bird’s Head (WBH).[2]: 78 These are not easily explainable as chance resemblance. The question then is whether they are due to language contact (i.e., borrowing) or to common descent (i.e., genealogical inheritance). On the other hand, there is little evidence linking the individual families of the Vogelkop Peninsula to each other, with the relationship perhaps better considered areal (i.e., a Sprachbund).[3]: 626 In spite of the shared morpho-syntactic features, many of these languages exhibit little in the way of lexical resemblance.[4]
It is not clear if East Bird’s Head (
All of these languages show traces of old Austronesian influence.: 625
The term "West Papuan" has also been used in an areal sense, encompassing most of the non-Austronesian languages of Halmahera and Bird's Head.[5]
Languages
- West Papuan
- North Halmahera (Halmahera – West Makian)
- Core North Halmahera
- West Makian
- Amberbaken(Mpur)
- Yawa (Yapen)
- West–Central Bird's Head
- West Bird's Head
- Abun
- Maybrat(Central Bird's Head)
- East Bird's Head
- Burmeso
- Hatam–Mansim (Hatam – Moi Brai)
- Mantion–Meax (Southeast Bird's Head)
- North Halmahera (Halmahera – West Makian)
History
The German linguist
In 2005,
Timothy Usher, also somewhat tentatively, accepts Yawa and East Bird's Head, but not Sentani, as part of West Papuan itself, so the family can remain under that name.[8]
Holton and Klamer (2018) do not unequivocally accept the unity of West Papuan, but note that certain proposals linking "West Papuan" groups together may eventually turn out to be fruitful.
Pronouns
The pronouns Ross reconstructs for proto-West Papuan are,
I *da, *di- exclusive we *mam, *mi- inclusive we *po- thou *ni, *na, *a- you *nan, *ni- she *mV they *yo, *ana, *yo-
These are shared by the "core" West Papuan families. Hattam reflects only "I" and "thou", and
Ross's Extended West Papuan languages have forms in *d for "I" and *m for "we". (Most Yawa forms of "we" have m, such as imama, but they are too diverse for an easy reconstruction.) These are found in all branches of the family except for the
Ross's West Papuan proper is distinguished from
family I thou we West Papuan *da, *di- *na, *ni, *a- *mam, *mi EBH-Sentani *da, *di *ba~wa, *bi *meme, *me Yava *rei *wein (imama etc.)
Word order
Word order is SVO in the West Bird's Head family and in western North Halmahera languages (Ternate, Tidore, West Makian, and Sahu; due to Austronesian influence). SVO word order is also present in the isolates Abun, Mpur, and Maibrat.[3]
The
Phonology
All Papuan languages of East
Abun and Mpur are fully tonal languages, with Mpur having 4 lexical tones, and Abun having 3 lexical tones. Meyah and Sougb are pitch-accent languages. All other languages of the Bird's Head Peninsula are non-tonal.[9]: 134–135
Of all the Papuan languages spoken in the Bird's Head Peninsula, Abun has the largest consonant inventory with 20 consonants, while neighboring Maybrat has the smallest with 11 consonants. Large consonant inventories similar to that of Abun are also found in the North Halmahera languages, such as Tobelo, Tidore, and Sahu.[3]: 583
Lexical comparison
The following is a basic vocabulary table of two
West Bird's Head family and Bird's Head isolates:
basic vocabularygloss Moi (WBH) Tehit (WBH) Mpur Abun Maibratarm/hand nin naa wom cim atem leg/foot eelik deit pet wis ao house keik mbol jan nu amah good bok hnjo mafun ndo mof dog oofun mqaan per ndar mtah pig baik qorik dwaw nok fane chicken kelem tole kokok kokor dam kukur kok louse -jam hain im im sruom water/river kla kla war aja banana o ogo fa weu apit
Below are lexical lookalikes between North Halmahera languages (NH) (Galela and Pagu) and West Bird's Head languages (WBH) (Moi and Tehit) from Voorhoeve (1988: 194), as quoted by Holton & Klamer (2018):[1][3]
Lexical comparisons between North Halmahera and
West Bird's Head familiesgloss Galela (NH) Pagu (NH) Moi (WBH) Tehit (WBH) ‘head’ sahe saek sawa safakos ‘fruit’, ‘eye’ sopo sowok suwo sfuon ‘egg’ gosi – – esyen ‘man’ ya-nau naul ne nau ‘meat’ lake lakem kem qan ‘tree’ gota – – kot ‘water’ ake akel kala kla ‘drink’ oke okel ook ooqo ‘stab’ saka sakal saa sqaa
See also
- Papuan languages
- West Trans–New Guinea languages
- Districts of West Papuafor a list of districts and villages with respective languages
- List of ethnic groups of West Papua
References
- ^ a b c Voorhoeve, Clemens L. 1988. The languages of the northern Halmaheran stock. In: Geoffrey P. Smith, Tom Dutton, Clemens L. Voorhoeve, Stephen Schooling, Janice Schooling, Robert Conrad, Ron Lewis, Stephen A. Wurm and Theo Baumann (eds.), Papers in New Guinea Linguistics 26: 181–209.
- ^ Voorhoeve, Clemens L. (1984–1994), "Comparative Linguistics and the West Papuan Phylum", in Masinambow, E.K.M. (ed.), Maluku dan Irian Jaya, Buletin LEKNAS 3.1, Jakarta: LEKNAS-LIPI, pp. 65–90
- ^ ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.
- ^ ISBN 9789042006447.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-08-087774-7, retrieved 2023-07-05
- ^ Arthur Capell, 'The "West Papuan Phylum", Stephen Wurm 1977 [1975], New Guinea Area Languages and Language Study, volume 1.
- ^ Wichmann, Søren. 2013. A classification of Papuan languages Archived 2020-11-25 at the Wayback Machine. In: Hammarström, Harald and Wilco van den Heuvel (eds.), History, contact and classification of Papuan languages (Language and Linguistics in Melanesia, Special Issue 2012), 313-386. Port Moresby: Linguistic Society of Papua New Guinea.
- ^ NewGuineaWorld - West Papuan
- ^ Klamer, Marian; Ger Reesink; and Miriam van Staden. 2008. East Nusantara as a Linguistic Area. In Pieter Muysken (ed.), From linguistic areas to areal linguistics, 95-149. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
- ^ Miedema, Jelle and Ger P. Reesink. 2004. One Head, Many Faces: New perspectives on the Bird's Head Peninsula of New Guinea. Leiden: KITLV.
- ^ Reesink, Ger P. 2005. West Papuan languages: roots and development. In: Pawley et al. (eds.) 185–218.