The family of North Huon Gulf languages is a subgroup of the Huon Gulf languages 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 ...

. It consists of three

language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...

s, all of which are distinguished by severe truncation of many inherited roots and the compensatory development of suprasegmentals on vowels: phonemic tone in Yabem and Bukawa (Ross 1993) and nasalization in

Kela Kela or KELA may refer to: * KelA, a sports club in Kellokoski, Finland * KELA (AM), a radio station (1470 AM) licensed to Centralia-Chehalis, Washington, United States * Kela (Finnish institution), the Finnish social security agency * Kela (trib ...

(Johnson 1994).

Languages

* Yabem * Bukawa *

Footnotes

References

* Eckermann, W. (2007). ''A descriptive grammar of the Bukawa language of the Morobe Province of Papua New Guinea.'' PL585. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. * Johnson, Morris (1994)
Kela organised phonology data
* Ross, Malcolm (1988). ''Proto Oceanic and the Austronesian languages of western Melanesia.'' Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. * Ross, Malcolm (1993). "Tonogenesis in the North Huon Gulf chain." In Jerold A. Edmondson and Kenneth J. Gregerson, eds., ''Tonality in Austronesian languages,'' 133–153. Oceanic Linguistics Special Publication No. 24. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press. {{Austronesian languages Huon Gulf languages Languages of Morobe Province Tonal languages in non-tonal families