The Middle Sepik languages comprise diverse groups of

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 ...

spoken in 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 ...

. The Middle Sepik grouping is provisionally accepted by Foley (2018) based on shared innovations in pronouns, but is divided by ''Glottolog''. They are spoken in areas surrounding the town of

Ambunti Ambunti is a town in Ambunti-Dreikikier District of East Sepik Province in Papua New Guinea. It has a population of 2,110. The town serves as a gateway to April Salome Forest Management Area.East Sepik Province East Sepik is a province in Papua New Guinea. Its capital is Wewak. East Sepik has an estimated population of 433,481 people (2010 census) and is 43,426 km square in size. History Cherubim Dambui was appointed as East Sepik's first premier ...

. Unlike most other Sepik languages, Middle Sepik languages do not overtly mark gender on nouns, although the third-person singular pronoun does distinguish between masculine and feminine genders (e.g., Proto- Ndu *nd- ‘3sg.m’ and *l- ‘3sg.f’).

Languages

The languages are:Middle Sepik River
NewGuineaWorld *Ma–Tama **

Nukuma languages The Nukuma languages are a small family of three clearly related languages: * Kwoma *Kwanga–Mende ** Kwanga ** Seim They are generally classified among the Sepik languages of northern Papua New Guinea; Malcolm Ross places them in a Middle Se ...

(see) **

Tama languages The Tama languages are a small family of three clusters of closely related languages of northern Papua New Guinea, spoken just to the south of Nuku town in eastern Sandaun Province. They are classified as subgroup of the Sepik languages. ''Tama' ...

(see) *Ndu–Yerekai **Ndu–Nggala *** Nggala ***

Ndu languages The Ndu languages are the best known family of the Sepik languages of East Sepik Province in northern Papua New Guinea. ''Ndu'' is the word for 'man' in the languages that make up this group. The languages were first identified as a related famil ...

(see) ** Yerakai (Garamambu)

References

* {{Sepik languages Sepik languages