The Arafundi languages are a small

family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...

of clearly related languages in

East Sepik Province East Sepik is a province in Papua New Guinea. Its capital is Wewak. East Sepik has an estimated population of 433,481 people (2010 census) and is 43,426 km square in size. History Cherubim Dambui was appointed as East Sepik's first premier ...

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

. They are conjectured to be related to the Piawi and

Madang languages The Madang or Madang–Adelbert Range languages are a language family of Papua New Guinea. They were classified as a branch of Trans–New Guinea by Stephen Wurm, followed by Malcolm Ross. William A. Foley concurs that it is "highly likely" t ...

. They are named after the

Arafundi River The Arafundi River is a river in northern Papua New Guinea. Arafundi Riverin Geonames.org (cc-by) post updated 2012-01-17; database downloaded 2015-06-22 See also *List of rivers of Papua New Guinea *Arafundi languages The Arafundi languages ...

. Alfendio is an old synonym for ''Arafundi'', from when it was still considered a single language.

Languages

The Arafundi languages form a

dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...

where language boundaries are blurred. The Arafundi languages are,Usher, Timothy (2020) New Guinea World
Arafundi River
/ref> * Nanubae *

Tapei Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the ...

Andai Andai (Meakambut, Pundungum, Wangkai) is an Arafundi language of Papua New Guinea. Locations Kassell, et al. (2018) list Namata, Kupina, Kaiyam, Andambit, and Awarem as the villages where Nanubae is spoken.Kassell, Alison, Bonnie MacKenzie and ...

(Meakambut) * Awiakay (Karamba) Kassell, et al. (2018) recognize Andai, Nanubae, and Tapei. Foley (2018) cites Hoenigman (2015) for 'Upper Arafundi' and 'Lower Arafundi', as well as listing Awiakay and 'Imboin'. However, the scope of these names is somewhat confused. Usher notes, An Enga-based pidgin is also used by speakers of Arafundi languages.

Classification

Laycock (1973) grouped the Arafundi languages with the

Ramu languages The Ramu languages are a family of some thirty languages of Northern Papua New Guinea. They were identified as a family by John Z'graggen in 1971 and linked with the Sepik languages by Donald Laycock two years later. Malcolm Ross (2005) classifi ...

, although (according to his comments in the introduction) this grouping was apparently impressionistic and not based on either reconstructive work or lexicostatistics. Ross (2005) retains Laycock's grouping without comment. However, Foley (2005) does not include Arafundi within Ramu, and ''Ethnologue'' (2009) shows them as an independent family. Foley has suggested instead that the Arafundi and

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 M ...

may be related (Comrie 1992), a position confirmed by Timothy Usher.NewGuineaWorld Arafundi and Upper Yuat Rivers
/ref>

Proto-language

Some lexical reconstructions of Proto-Arafundi River by Usher (2020) are: :

References

* Comrie, Bernard. "The recognition of the Piawi language family." In Tom Dutton, Malcolm Ross and

Darrell Tryon Darrell T. Tryon (20 July 1942 – 15 May 2013) was a New Zealand-born linguist, academic, and specialist in Austronesian languages. Specifically, Tryon specialised in the study of the languages of the Pacific Islands, particularly Vanuatu, th ...

, eds. ''The language game: Papers in memory of Donald C. Laycock''. 111-113. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, 1992. * * Laycock, Donald. ''Sepik languages - checklist and preliminary classification''. Pacific Linguistics B-25. Canberra, 1973. *

External links

Arafundi languages database at TransNewGuinea.orgArafundi River
New Guinea World. {{Language families Upper Yuat languages Languages of East Sepik Province