Massep (Masep, Potafa, Wotaf) is a poorly documented

Papuan language 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 by fewer than 50 people in the single village of Masep in West Pantai District,

Sarmi Regency Sarmi Regency is one of the regencies (''kabupaten'') in Papua Province of Indonesia. It was formed from the western districts then within Jayapura Regency with effect from 12 November 2002. It covers an area of 18,034.0 km2, and had a population ...

, Papua. Despite the small number of speakers, however, language use is vigorous. It is surrounded by the

Kwerba languages The half dozen Kwerba languages form a small language family spoken in Jayapura Regency Jayapura Regency is one of the regencies (''kabupaten'') in Papua Province of Indonesia. It is situated to the west of but does not include the city of Ja ...

Airoran and Samarokena.

Classification

Clouse, Donohue, and Ma (2002) conclude that it definitely is not a Kwerba language, as it had been classified by Wurm (1975). They did not notice connections to any other language family. However, Usher (2018) classifies it as Greater Kwerbic. ''Ethnologue'', ''Glottolog'', and Foley (2018) list it as a language isolate, but it has not been included in wider surveys, such as Ross (2005). The pronouns are not dissimilar from those of

Trans–New Guinea languages Trans–New Guinea (TNG) is an extensive family of Papuan languages spoken on the island of New Guinea and neighboring islands ‒ corresponding to the country Papua New Guinea as well as parts of Indonesia. Trans–New Guinea is the third-la ...

, but Massep is geographically distant from that family.

Phonology

Consonants: : Some probable consonant leniting sound changes proposed by Foley (2018): * *p > ɸ * *b > β * *d > r * *k > ɣ (perhaps partially) Vowels: :

Pronouns

Pronouns are: :

Morphology

Massep case suffixes as quoted by Foley (2018) from Clouse (2002): :

Sentences

Massep sentences as quoted by Foley (2018) from Clouse (2002): Word order is SOV.

References

External links

* Timothy Usher and Mark Donohue, New Guinea World
Masep
{{Languages of Indonesia Languages of western New Guinea Kwerbic languages Language isolates of New Guinea Endangered language isolates