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