The East New Britain languages are a possible small
language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in h ...
spoken on the
Gazelle Peninsula
The Gazelle Peninsula is a large peninsula in northeastern East New Britain, Papua New Guinea located on the island of New Britain within the Bismarck Archipelago, situated in the southwestern Pacific Ocean.
The Rabaul caldera is located on t ...
of
New Britain in
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 ...
. They were classified as
East Papuan languages
The East Papuan languages is a defunct proposal for a family of Papuan languages spoken on the islands to the east of New Guinea, including New Britain, New Ireland, Bougainville, Solomon Islands, and the Santa Cruz Islands. There is no eviden ...
by Wurm, but this does not now seem tenable. The only comparative work that has been done between the two branches of the proposed family is Ross (2001), which shows similarities in the pronouns.
Languages
The languages are:
*
Baining:
Mali
Mali (; ), officially the Republic of Mali,, , ff, 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞥆𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 𞤃𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭, Renndaandi Maali, italics=no, ar, جمهورية مالي, Jumhūriyyāt Mālī is a landlocked country in West Africa. Mal ...
,
Qaqet,
Kairak,
Simbali,
Ura, ?
Makolkol (extinct?)
*
Taulil–Butam:
Taulil,
Butam (extinct)
Makolkol is unattested.
''Glottolog'' does not accept that a connection between the two branches has been demonstrated.
Stebbins et al. (2018) note that further work needs to be done, and are uncertain how to explain the similarity in pronouns between the two families with the fact that the ancestors of the Taulil and Butam people had migrated from
New Ireland and so presumably would have their closest relatives there.
Pronouns
The pronouns Ross (2001) compares for East New Britain are as follows.
:
See also
*
Baining people
The Baining people are among the earliest continuously located inhabitants of the Gazelle Peninsula of East New Britain, Papua New Guinea; they currently live in the Baining Mountains, from which they take their name. The Baining are thought to h ...
*
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 ...
References
* Dunn, Michael; Angela Terrill;
Ger Reesink
Gerard P. Reesink (more commonly known as Ger Reesink) is a Dutch linguist who specializes in Papuan languages.
Education
He studied psychology at Utrecht University. He obtained his PhD in linguistics at the University of Amsterdam, where he com ...
; Robert A. Foley; Stephen C. Levinson (2005). Structural Phylogenetics and the Reconstruction of Ancient Language History. ''Science'' magazine, 23 Sept. 2005, vol. 309, p 2072.
*
Ross, Malcolm (2005). Pronouns as a preliminary diagnostic for grouping Papuan languages." In: Andrew Pawley, Robert Attenborough, Robin Hide and Jack Golson, eds, ''Papuan pasts: cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples,'' 15-66. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
External links
East New Britain languages database at TransNewGuinea.org
{{Papuan languages
Language families
East Papuan languages
Languages of East New Britain Province