The Markham languages form a family of the

Huon Gulf languages The Huon Gulf languages are Western Oceanic languages spoken primarily in Morobe Province of Papua New Guinea. They may form a group of the North New Guinea languages, perhaps within the Ngero–Vitiaz branch of that family. Unusually for Oceani ...

. It consists of a dozen languages spoken in the

Ramu Valley The Ramu River is a major river in northern Papua New Guinea. The headwaters of the river are formed in the Kratke Range from where it then travels about northwest to the Bismarck Sea. Along the Ramu's course, it receives numerous tributaries ...

Markham Valley The Markham Valley is a geographical area in Papua New Guinea. The name "Markham" commemorates Sir Clements Markham, Secretary of the British Royal Geographical Society - Captain John Moresby of the Royal Navy named the Markham River after Sir Cl ...

and associated valley systems in the lowlands of the

Madang Madang (old German name: ''Friedrich-Wilhelmshafen'') is the capital of Madang Province and is a town with a population of 27,420 (in 2005) on the north coast of Papua New Guinea. It was first settled by the Germans in the 19th century. Histo ...

and Morobe Provinces of

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 ...

. Unlike almost other

Western Oceanic languages The Western Oceanic languages is a linkage of Oceanic languages, proposed and studied by . Classification The West Oceanic linkage is made up of three sub-linkages:. * North New Guinea linkage * Meso-Melanesian linkage * Papuan Tip linkage Th ...

of New Guinea, which are spoken exclusively in coastal areas, many Markham languages are spoken in the mountainous interior of

Morobe Province Morobe Province is a province on the northern coast of Papua New Guinea. The provincial capital and largest city is Lae. The province covers 33,705 km2, with a population of 674,810 (2011 census), and since the division of Southern Highlands ...

, where they are in heavy contact with Trans-New Guinea languages. Although the Markham languages are Austronesian, they have had much contact with neighboring

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 geogr ...

. A phonological reconstruction of Proto-Markham is presented in Holzknecht (1989) and is summarized below.

Languages

Labu (= Hapa) ;Lower Markham: Aribwaung (= Aribwaungg, Yalu), Aribwatsa^† (= Lae, Lahe), Musom, Nafi (= Sirak), Duwet (= Guwot, Waing), Wampar, Silisili (Middle Watut), Maralango (South Watut), Dangal (South Watut) ;Upper Markham:

Adzera Adzera (also spelled Atzera, Azera, Atsera, Acira) is an Austronesian language spoken by about 30,000 people in Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea. Dialects Holzknecht (1989) lists six Adzera dialects. * ''Central'' dialect chain: 9,950 speake ...

(dialect cluster: Sarasira, Sukurum), Mari, Wampur

Proto-Markham

Proto-Markham was reconstructed by Susanne Holzknecht in 1989 in her paper ''The Markham Languages of Papua New Guinea''. It descends from Proto-Huon Gulf on the basis of shared

phonological Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...

morphosyntactic In linguistics, morphology () is the study of words, how they are formed, and their relationship to other words in the same language. It analyzes the structure of words and parts of words such as stems, root words, prefixes, and suffixes. Morph ...

and lexicosemantic innovations, such as the merger of Proto-Huon Gulf ''*t'', ''*r'', and ''*R'' as Proto-Markham ''*r'', the accretion of ''*ka-'' into focal pronoun bases (Proto-Oceanic ''*kamu'' "you" > Proto-Markham ''*ka-gam'' "id."), and the replacement of Proto-Oceanic ''*qacan'' "name" by Proto-Markham ''*biŋa'' "id.", among many others.

Vowels

The vowels of Proto-Markham, according to Holzknecht, are:

Consonants

The consonants of Proto-Markham, according to Holzknecht, are: :

References

{{Austronesian languages Huon Gulf languages Languages of Morobe Province