The Leonhard Schultze (Leonard Schultze) or Walio–Papi languages are a proposed

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 about 6 Papuan languages spoken in the Sepik river basin of northern

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 spoken along the border region of East Sepik Province and

Sandaun Province Sandaun Province (formerly West Sepik Province) is the northwesternmost mainland province of Papua New Guinea. It covers an area of 35,920 km2 (13868 m2) and has a population of 248,411 (2011 census). The capital is Vanimo. In July 1998 the a ...

, just to the south of the

Iwam languages The Iwam languages are a small family of two clearly related languages, : May River Iwam and Sepik Iwam. They are generally classified among the Sepik languages of northern Papua New Guinea; Malcolm Ross places them in an Upper Sepik branch of ...

. The languages are named after the

Leonhard Schultze River The Leonard Schultze River or Leonhard Schultze River is a river in northern Papua New Guinea.Leonard Schultze Riverin Geonames.org (cc-by) post updated 2012-01-17; database downloaded 2015-06-22 It is named after German explorer Leonhard Schultze ...

, which is in turn named after German anthropologist

Leonhard Schultze-Jena Leonhard Schultze-Jena (full name: Leonhard Sigmund Friedrich Kuno Klaus Schultze-Jena; born May 28, 1872 in Jena; died March 28, 1955 in Marburg) was a German explorer, zoologist, and anthropologist known for his explorations of German Southwe ...

Languages

The Leonard Schultze languages are: *

Walio languages The Walio languages are a small family of clearly related languages, : Walio, Pei, Yawiyo, and Tuwari. However, they are not close: Walio and Yawiyo have only a 12% lexical similarity. They are frequently classified among the Sepik languages ...

: Walio, Pei, Yawiyo, and Tuwari *

Papi–Asaba languages The Papi and Asaba languages form a small family of two somewhat distantly related languages of northern Papua New Guinea, namely Papi and Suarmin (Asaba). Donald Laycock (1973) classified them as part of a Walio–Papi, a.k.a. Leonhard Schu ...

: Papi and Suarmin

Classification

The Leonhard Schultze languages were traditionally classified by

Laycock Laycock is an English surname, likely originating from the placename Lacock, in Wiltshire (which is pronounced ''Laycock'') or Laycock in West Yorkshire. According to the 1990 United States Census, Laycock is the 22,119th most common surname. No ...

and Z'graggen (1975) as part of the Sepik language family. Foley (2018) classifies the Leonhard Schultze languages separately as an independent language family rather than as part of the

Sepik languages The Sepik or Sepik River languages are a family of some 50 Papuan languages spoken in the Sepik river basin of northern Papua New Guinea, proposed by Donald Laycock in 1965 in a somewhat more limited form than presented here. They tend to have ...

(as in previous classifications proposed by others). However, this classification is not accepted by Glottolog, which splits up the Walio and Papi branches and considers them each to be a primary language family.

Vocabulary comparison

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

References

{{language families Sepik languages Languages of Momase Region