The Sepik–Ramu languages are an obsolete
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 ...
of
New Guinea
New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torr ...
linking the
Sepik
The Sepik () is the longest river on the island of New Guinea, and the second largest in Oceania by discharge volume after the Fly River. The majority of the river flows through the Papua New Guinea (PNG) provinces of Sandaun (formerly West Se ...
,
Ramu
The Ramu River is a major river in northern Papua New Guinea. The headwaters of the river are formed in the Kratke Range from where it then travels about northwest to the Bismarck Sea.
Along the Ramu's course, it receives numerous tributaries ...
,
Nor–Pondo (Lower Sepik),
Leonhard Schultze (Walio–Papi) and
Yuat families, together with the
Taiap language isolate, and proposed by
Donald Laycock
Donald Laycock (1936–1988) was an Australian linguist and anthropologist. He is best remembered for his work on the languages of Papua New Guinea.
Biography
He was a graduate of University of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia and later ...
and
John Z'graggen
John Z'graggen (born Hans Anton Z'graggen on 24 June 1932 in Schattdorf, Canton of Uri, Switzerland; died 20 May 2013 in Menzingen, Switzerland) was a Swiss Roman Catholic priest, missionary, linguist, and anthropologist known for his extensive wo ...
in 1975.
[Laycock, D. C. and Z'graggen, John A. 1975. The Sepik-Ramu Phylum. In Wurm, S.A. (ed.), Papuan Languages and the New Guinea Linguistic Scene, New Guinea Area Languages and Language Study 1, 729-763. Australian National University.]
Sepik–Ramu would consist of a hundred languages of the
Sepik
The Sepik () is the longest river on the island of New Guinea, and the second largest in Oceania by discharge volume after the Fly River. The majority of the river flows through the Papua New Guinea (PNG) provinces of Sandaun (formerly West Se ...
and
Ramu
The Ramu River is a major river in northern Papua New Guinea. The headwaters of the river are formed in the Kratke Range from where it then travels about northwest to the Bismarck Sea.
Along the Ramu's course, it receives numerous tributaries ...
river basins of 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 ...
, but spoken by only 200,000 people in all. The languages tend to have simple phonologies, with few consonants or vowels and usually no tones.
The best known Sepik–Ramu language is
Iatmül. The most populous are Iatmül's fellow Ndu languages Abelam and Boiken, with about 35,000 speakers apiece.
Malcolm Ross and
William A. Foley separately re-evaluated the Sepik–Ramu hypothesis in 2005. They both found no evidence that it forms a valid family. However, all of the constituent branches, except for Yuat within Ramu, remain individually valid in his evaluation. Ross links Nor–Pondo to Ramu in a
Ramu–Lower Sepik proposal, places Leonhard Schultze (tentatively broken up into Walio and Papi) within an extended
Sepik
The Sepik () is the longest river on the island of New Guinea, and the second largest in Oceania by discharge volume after the Fly River. The majority of the river flows through the Papua New Guinea (PNG) provinces of Sandaun (formerly West Se ...
family, and treats Yuat and Taiap as independent families.
Classification
Ethnologue
This list is a mirror of the classification in ''
Ethnologue'' 15.
Sepik–Ramu phylum (based on Laycock 1973)
* ''
Taiap'' isolate
*
Leonhard Schultze stock
**
Walio family (4 languages)
**
Papi family (2 languages)
*
Nor–Pondo
The Lower Sepik a.k.a. Nor–Pondo languages are a small language family of East Sepik Province in northern Papua New Guinea. They were identified as a family by K Laumann in 1951 under the name Nor–Pondo, and included in Donald Laycock's now-d ...
stock (6 languages)
* Ramu subphylum (37 languages)
**
Ramu
The Ramu River is a major river in northern Papua New Guinea. The headwaters of the river are formed in the Kratke Range from where it then travels about northwest to the Bismarck Sea.
Along the Ramu's course, it receives numerous tributaries ...
superstock (29 languages)
***
Grass
Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns a ...
stock (5 languages)
***
Arafundi family (2 languages)
***
Annaberg stock (3 languages)
*** Ruboni stock (8 languages)
****
Ottilien family
****
Misegian family
*** Goam stock (11 languages)
****
Ataitan family
****
Tamolan family
** Yuat–Langam superstock (13 languages)
***
Mongol–Langam family
*** Yuat–Maramba stock
**** ''
Maramba'' isolate (unattested)
****
Yuat family
*
Sepik
The Sepik () is the longest river on the island of New Guinea, and the second largest in Oceania by discharge volume after the Fly River. The majority of the river flows through the Papua New Guinea (PNG) provinces of Sandaun (formerly West Se ...
subphylum (50 languages)
ee subclassification at that article
Foley (2018)
Uncontroversially coherent subgroups accepted by Foley (2018) are:
;
Sepik
The Sepik () is the longest river on the island of New Guinea, and the second largest in Oceania by discharge volume after the Fly River. The majority of the river flows through the Papua New Guinea (PNG) provinces of Sandaun (formerly West Se ...
(11 groups)
*
Ndu (
Middle Sepik?)
*
Nukuma (
Middle Sepik?)
*''
Yerakai'' (
Middle Sepik?)
*
Yellow River
The Yellow River or Huang He (Chinese: , Mandarin: ''Huáng hé'' ) is the second-longest river in China, after the Yangtze River, and the sixth-longest river system in the world at the estimated length of . Originating in the Bayan Ha ...
(
Middle Sepik?)
*
Tama
*
Sepik Hill
*
Ram
Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to:
Animals
* A male sheep
* Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish
People
* Ram (given name)
* Ram (surname)
* Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director
* RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch
* ...
*
Wogamus (
Upper Sepik?)
*
Iwam (
Upper Sepik?)
*''
Abau
Abau is a Papuan language spoken in southern Sandaun Province of Papua New Guinea, primarily along the border with Indonesia.
In 2002, there were estimated to be between 4,500 and 5,000 speakers, and this number does not appear to have declined s ...
'' (
Upper Sepik?)
*''
Amal Amal may refer to:
* Amal (given name)
* Åmål, a small town in Sweden
* Amal Movement, a Lebanese political party
** Amal Militia, Amal Movement's defunct militia
* Amal language of Papua New Guinea
* Amal (film), ''Amal'' (film), 2007, directed ...
''
;
Ramu
The Ramu River is a major river in northern Papua New Guinea. The headwaters of the river are formed in the Kratke Range from where it then travels about northwest to the Bismarck Sea.
Along the Ramu's course, it receives numerous tributaries ...
(5 groups)
*
Middle Ramu
*
Tamolan
*
Ataitan (Tanggu)
*
Ottilien–
Misegian
*
Grass
Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns a ...
;
Lower Sepik
;
Leonhard Schultze (Walio-Papi)
*
Walio
*
Papi
;
Yuat
;''
Taiap''
Lexical comparison
Below is a comparison of proto-
Ndu, proto-
Lower Sepik, and proto-
Ottilien reconstructed by and listed in Foley (2005).
:
Due to its highly divergent lexicon, Foley does not classify
Sepik
The Sepik () is the longest river on the island of New Guinea, and the second largest in Oceania by discharge volume after the Fly River. The majority of the river flows through the Papua New Guinea (PNG) provinces of Sandaun (formerly West Se ...
with
Lower Sepik and
Ramu
The Ramu River is a major river in northern Papua New Guinea. The headwaters of the river are formed in the Kratke Range from where it then travels about northwest to the Bismarck Sea.
Along the Ramu's course, it receives numerous tributaries ...
.
The lexical data below is from the Trans-New Guinea database,
Foley (2005),
and Usher (2020) (for Proto-Arafundi).
See also
*
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 ...
*
Northwest Papuan languages
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sepik-Ramu languages
Proposed language families
Papuan languages
Languages of Papua New Guinea