The Mantion–Meax or (South)East Bird's Head languages are a
language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in h ...
of three languages in the "
Bird's Head Peninsula
The Bird's Head Peninsula ( Indonesian: ''Kepala Burung'', nl, Vogelkop) or Doberai Peninsula (''Semenanjung Doberai''), is a large peninsula that makes up the northwest portion of the island of New Guinea, comprising the Indonesian provinces ...
" of western
New Guinea
New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torr ...
, spoken by all together 20,000 people.
Classification
East Bird's Head stock (3 languages)
*''
Mantion'' (Manikion, Sougb)
*Meax family:
Meax (Meyah),
Meninggo (Moskona)
Pronouns
The pronouns Ross reconstructs for the proto-language (Usher's Southeast Bird's Head) are:
:
Basic vocabulary
Lexical similarities among East Bird's Head languages (
Meyah,
Moskona,
Sougb,
Hatam,
Mansim) listed in Holton & Klamer (2018):
:
Additional East Bird's Head basic vocabulary quoted by Holton & Klamer (2018)
from Miedema & Reesink (2004: 34) and (Reesink 2005: 202), showing diverse non-cognate vocabulary across different branches:
:
The following basic vocabulary words are from Voorhoeve (1975) and Miedema & Welling (1985), as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:
:
See also
*
Hatam–Mansim languages
*
West Papuan languages
The West Papuan languages are a proposed language family of about two dozen non-Austronesian languages of the Bird's Head Peninsula (Vogelkop or Doberai Peninsula) of far western New Guinea, the island of Halmahera and its vicinity, spoken by ab ...
References
Further reading
*
External links
East Bird's Head languages database at TransNewGuinea.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mantion-Meax languages
Languages of Indonesia
East Bird's Head languages
Western New Guinea