The Nimboran 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
Papuan languages
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 neighbouring islands, by around 4 million people. It is a strictly geogra ...
, spoken in the
Grime River
The Grime River is a river in northern New Guinea, in Papua (province), Papua Provinces of Indonesia, province, Indonesia.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 ...
's
Trans–New Guinea proposal. However, when proto-Nimboran pronouns are reconstructed ''(*genam'' "I" and ''kom'' or ''komot'' "thou"), they have little resemblance to the proto-TNG pronouns ''*na'' and ''*ga.'' Usher places them in a
North Papuan stock that resembles Cowan's proposal.
[
Foley (2018) classifies the Nimboran languages separately as an independent language family.]
Classification
The languages are:[
*Nimboran (Grime River)
**East
*** Mekwei (Moi)
***Gresi–Kemtuik
**** Kemtuik
**** Gresi
**West
*** Mlap (Kuangsu)
*** Namblong (Nimboran)
]
Proto-language
Pronouns
The pronouns Ross (2005) reconstructs for proto-Nimboran are,
:
Below are pronouns in the Nimboran languages as given by Foley (2018):Nimboran language
Nimboran (Nambrong) is a Papuan language of Nimboran District, Jayapura Regency, Indonesia spoken by mostly older adults. Younger generations have shifted to Papuan Malay. It is spoken in about 26 villages to the west of Lake Sentani
Lake Sentan ...
.
Basic vocabulary
Some lexical reconstructions by Usher (2020) are:[Grime River]
New Guinea World.
:
Vocabulary comparison
The following basic vocabulary words are from Voorhoeve (1975), as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:
References
External links
Nimboran word lists from Voorhoeve (1975)
(TransNewGuinea.org)
Grime River
New Guinea World.
{{Tor–Kwerba languages
Foja Range languages