| East Papuan Languages |
Article Index for East |
Website Links For East Papuan |
Information AboutEast Papuan Languages |
|
All but two of the starred languages below (Yele and Sulka) make a gender distinction in their pronouns. Several of the heavily Papuanized Austronesian languages of New Britain do as well. This suggests a pre-Austronesian Language Area in the region. HISTORY OF THE PROPOSAL The East Papuan languages were identified as a phylum by linguist Stephen Würm and others. However, their work was preliminary, and there is little evidence the East Papuan languages actually have a Geneaologic Relationship . For example, none of the fifteen languages marked with asterisks below share more than 2-3% of their basic vocabulary with any of the others ('basic vocabulary' being words for basic things like ''fire'', ''water'', ''eye'', or ''louse'' that are not likely to be borrowed from neighboring languages). Dunn ''et al.'' (2005) tested the reliability of the proposed 2-3% Cognate s by randomizing the vocabulary lists and comparing them again. The nonsense comparisons produced the same 2-3% of "shared" vocabulary, demonstrating that the proposed cognates of the East Papuan languages, and even of proposed families within the East Papuan languages, are as likely to be due to chance as to any genealogical relationship. Thus in a conservative classification, many of the East Papuan languages would be considered Language Isolate s. Given that the islands in question have been settled for at least 35 000 years, it's not surprising that they show considerable linguistic diversity. However, Malcolm Ross (2005) has presented evidence from comparing Pronoun s from nineteen of these languages that several of the lower-level branches of East Papuan may indeed be valid families. This is the classification adopted here. For Würm's more inclusive classification, see the Ethnologue entry here . CLASSIFICATION (ROSS 2005) Small families Each of the first five entries in boldface is an independent language family, unrelated to the others. The first is a more tentative proposal than the others and awaits confirmation. Not considered by Ross or Dunn was the sixth, the extinct Kazakuru family. These languages were clearly related to each other, but it is unknown how they might otherwise fit into this classification. However, Würm placed them at a taxonomic level comparable to the independent families listed here. Reconstructed pronoun sets for each of the families are given in the individual articles. ? Yele-West New Britain family {Link without Title}
North Bougainville family — Bougainville South Bougainville family — Bougainville
Central Solomons family
''', Guliguli , Kazukuru — New Georgia
True language isolates These three languages are not thought to be demonstrably related to each other or to any language in the world. If the Yele-West New Britain family is not confirmed, the region may contain six isolates rather than three.
Other languages Three languages of the Santa Cruz and Reef Islands may form an additional family. However, their pronouns suggest that they may be divergent Austronesian Languages . If they are Papuan, they show no connection to any of the families listed above and are heavily mixed with Austronesian elements. Archeological evidence suggests that they migrated to their current location with Austronesian speakers, rather than being a remnant indigenous family.
REFERENCES
SEE ALSO |