The Paniai Lakes languages, also known as the Wissel Lakes or Wissel Lakes – Kemandoga River, are a small family of closely related

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 ...

spoken in the Paniai Lakes region of the highlands of

Western New Guinea Western New Guinea, also known as Papua, Indonesian New Guinea, or Indonesian Papua, is the western half of the Melanesian island of New Guinea which is administered by Indonesia. Since the island is alternatively named as Papua, the region ...

in the Paniai Lakes region of Papua. Foley (2003) considers their Trans–New Guinea status to be established.

Languages

The languages are:NewGuineaWorld
/ref> *

Moni Moni or Mone ( Kamkata-vari: ''Mone''/''Mune''), also known as Mandi (from Prasun) was, after Imra, the second-most important god in the pre-Islamic pantheon of the Nuristani people. With his breath, Imra created Moni and Gish. Moni was believed t ...

*Central ** Wolani (Wodani) ** Ekari (Ekari) ** Auye (incl. Dao) They are most closely related to the

Dani languages The Dani or Baliem Valley languages are a family of clearly related Trans–New Guinea languages spoken by the Dani people, Dani and related peoples in the Baliem Valley in the highlands of Papua Province, Indonesia. Foley (2003) considers their ...

, Amung and

Dem DEM was the ISO 4217 currency code for the Deutsche Mark, former currency of Germany Computing * Digital elevation model, a digital representation of ground-surface topography or terrain ** .dem, a common extension for USGS DEM files * Discrete ...

Pronouns

Independent pronouns and possessive prefixes are: :

Vocabulary comparison

The following basic vocabulary words are from Larson & Larson (1972) and Voorhoeve (1975), as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database: :

Evolution

Paniai Lakes reflexes of proto-Trans-New Guinea (pTNG) etyma are:

Ekari language Ekari (also ''Ekagi'', ''Kapauku'', ''Mee'') is a Trans–New Guinea language spoken by about 100,000 people in the Paniai lakes region of the Indonesian province of Papua, including the villages of Enarotali, Mapia and Moanemani. This mak ...

: * ‘breast’ < * ‘arm’ < * ‘belly’ < * ‘breast’ < * ‘skin’ < * ‘louse’ < * ‘come’ < * ‘father’ < * ‘speech, talk’ < ‘instructions’ * ‘sun’ <

Moni language Moni, as given by Ekari people, or Migani/Megani, as given by locals, also known as ''Djonggunu'', ''Jonggunu'', is a Papuan language spoken by about 20,000 people (1991) in the Paniai lakes region of the Indonesian province of Central Papua Cen ...

: * ‘breast’ < * ‘heart’ < ‘internal organs, belly’ * ‘skin’ < * ‘woman’ < * ‘night’ < * ‘stone’ < * ‘tree’ < * ‘come’ <

References

{{Papuan languages Languages of western New Guinea West Papuan Highlands languages