The Dani or Baliem Valley languages are a family of clearly related

Trans–New Guinea languages Trans–New Guinea (TNG) is an extensive family of Papuan languages spoken on the island of New Guinea and neighboring islands ‒ corresponding to the country Papua New Guinea as well as parts of Indonesia. Trans–New Guinea is the third-la ...

spoken by the Dani and related peoples in the

Baliem Valley The Baliem Valley ( id, Lembah Baliem; also spelled Balim and sometimes known as the Grand Valley) is a valley of the Central Highlands in Western New Guinea. Specifically in Highland Papua, Indonesia, which is inhabited mainly by the Dani peopl ...

in the highlands of

Papua Province Papua is a province of Indonesia, comprising the northern coast of Western New Guinea together with island groups in Cenderawasih Bay to the west. It roughly follows the borders of Papuan customary region of Tabi Saireri. It is bordered by the ...

, Indonesia. Foley (2003) considers their TNG status to be established. They may be most closely related to the languages of Paniai Lakes, but this is not yet clear. Capell (1962) had posited that their closest relatives were the Kwerba languages, which Ross (2005) rejects.

Languages

Larson (1977) divided the family into three branches based on lexicostatistics, and Nggem was later added as a fourth. The Ngalik languages are very poorly attested. * Dani family ** Wano ** Nggem ** Central Dani: Grand Valley Dani (upper, lower, and mid dialects), Hupla, Western Dani– Walak ** Ngalik: Nduga, Silimo, Yali (dialect cluster)

Phonemes

Usher (2020) reconstructs the consonant inventory as follows.New Guinea World, Baliem Valley
/ref> This is identical to the reconstruction of Bromley (1966-1967)Bromley, Myron H. 1966-1967. The Linguistic Relationships of Grand Valley Dani: A Lexico-statistical Classification. ''Oceania'' 37: 286-305. apart from adding the rare consonants *pw, *mbw and the possible additional vowel *ɐ. : : And the diphthongs *ei, *ou, *ai, *au.

Pronouns

Ross (1995) reconstructs the independent pronouns and possessive/object prefixes of Central Dani as: :

Vocabulary comparison

The following basic vocabulary words are from Bromley (1967) and Voorhoeve (1975), as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:

Evolution

Dani reflexes of proto-Trans-New Guinea (pTNG) etyma are: Grand Valley Dani language: * 'man' < * 'tongue' < * 'hair' < ( is 1sg possessor) * 'come' < * 'new' <

Western Dani language Western Dani, or Laani, is the most populous Papuan language The Papuan languages are the non- Austronesian and non-Australian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, as well as neighbour ...

: * 'man' < * < * 'tongue' < * 'new' < * 'leg' < * 'skin' < * 'tree' < Ngalik language: * 'tree' < * 'breast' < * 'full' < * 'smoke' <

References

* {{Authority control West Papuan Highlands languages Languages of western New Guinea