The Eleman languages are a
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 ...
spoken around
Kerema Bay
Kerema is the capital of Gulf Province, Papua New Guinea. It is located on the coast of Gulf of Papua. The Gulf region is aptly named for its concave coastline with large deltas. The Gulf area is a riparian region where many rivers from the southe ...
, Papua New Guinea.
Languages and classification
The five languages of Eleman proper are clearly related. They were identified as a family by
Sidney Herbert Ray
Sidney Herbert Ray (28 May 1858 – 1 January 1939) was a British comparative and descriptive linguist who specialised in Melanesian languages.Papers and field notes relating to his linguistic work are held bSOAS Special Collections/ref>
In 189 ...
in 1907, and would later be incorporated in the
Trans–New Guinea classifications of
Stephen Wurm
Stephen Adolphe Wurm ( hu, Wurm István Adolf, ; 19 August 1922 – 24 October 2001) was a Hungarian-born Australian linguist.
Early life
Wurm was born in Budapest, the second child to the German-speaking Adolphe Wurm and the Hungarian-sp ...
(1975) and of Malcolm Ross (2005).
* ? ''
Kaki Ae (Tate)''
* Eleman family
**West:
Keuru,
Opao,
Orokolo
**East:
Toaripi,
Tairuma (Uaripi)
Purari was included by Brown (1968), but the only evidence is the 1sg pronoun ''nai'', which might simply be a reflection of TNG *na.
The purported evidence for including Eleman in the Trans–New Guinea family lies in Kaki Ae. Franklin (1995) shows regular sound correspondences between Kaki Ae and Eleman, including Kaki Ae ''n'' to Eleman *r, so Kaki Ae ''nao'' 1sg appears to be cognate with Eleman *ara, both perhaps descending from proto-TNG *na. Likewise, Kaki Ae ''nu'u'' may reflect pTNG *nu, and the forms of the 2sg pronouns, ''ao'' and *a, are common in TNG languages.
Ross states that the Kaki Ae isolate links Eleman proper within TNG. However, ''
Glottolog
''Glottolog'' is a bibliographic database of the world's lesser-known languages, developed and maintained first at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany (between 2015 and 2020 at the Max Planck Institute for ...
'' notes that the sound correspondences are just what one would expect from loans, given the different phonologies of the languages: Eleman has no n/l/r distinction, and Kaki Ae has no t/k distinction.
Pawley and Hammarström (2018) classify
Kaki Ae as a
language isolate
Language isolates are languages that cannot be classified into larger language families. Korean and Basque are two of the most common examples. Other language isolates include Ainu in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, and Haida in North America. The num ...
rather than as part of Eleman, noting that similarities with Eleman are mostly because of borrowing.
Pronouns
The pronouns are as follows:
:
:
Further reading
*
Ross, Malcolm. 2014
Proto-Eleman ''TransNewGuinea.org''.
*
Ross, Malcolm. 2014
Proto-Eleman-Koriki ''TransNewGuinea.org''.
*
Ross, Malcolm. 2014
Proto-East-Eleman ''TransNewGuinea.org''.
*
Ross, Malcolm. 2014
Proto-West-Eleman ''TransNewGuinea.org''.
*Brown, Herbert A.
The Eleman Language Family. In Franklin, K. editor, ''The linguistic situation in the Gulf District and adjacent areas, Papua New Guinea''. C-26:279-376. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1973.
*Brown, Herbert A. 1972. ''The Elema languages: A comparative study of the Toaripi, Orokolo and their related dialects''. PhD thesis: University of London.
*Franklin, Karl J.. 1973. Appendices. In Karl J. Franklin (ed.), ''The Linguistic Situation in the Gulf District and Adjacent Areas, Papua New Guinea'', 539-592. Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University.
References
*
{{Languages of Papua New Guinea
Kaki Ae–Eleman languages
Languages of Gulf Province