The Tirio languages are a
family
Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...
of
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 ...
in the classification of
Malcolm Ross. The Tirio languages have about 40% of their lexicon in common.
Languages
*
Baramu
*
Bitur (Mutum)
*
Tirio (Makayam, Aturu)
*
Were
''Were'' and ''wer'' are archaic terms for adult male humans and were often used for alliteration with wife as "were and wife" in Germanic-speaking cultures ( ang, wer, odt, wer, got, waír, ofs, wer, osx, wer, goh, wer, non, verr).
In ...
(Kiunum)
Evans (2018) lists the Tirio languages as:
*
Tirio (Makayam)
*
Bitur (Paswam, Mutum)
*Lewada-Dewara, spoken on Dewala village on Sumogi Island
*Adulu (Aturu), also spoken on Sumogi Island
Baramu is somewhat more divergent in vocabulary, but this may reflect language contact rather than divergence in its position within the family. Pronouns are only available for Tirio itself (Makayam).
The moribund language
Abom was once classified as a divergent Tirio language, sharing only an eighth of its lexicon with the others, but it turns out to not belong to the family at all, nor to the Anim family that Tirio is a branch of.
A survey of the Tirio languages can be found in Jore and Alemán (2002).
[Jore, Tim and Laura Alemán. 2002. ''Sociolinguistic survey of the Tirio language family''. Manuscript. Ukarumpa: SIL-PNG.]
Phonemes
Usher (2020) reconstructs the consonant inventory as follows:
[New Guinea World, Lower Fly River]
/ref>
:
Vowels are *a *e *i *o *u.
Pronouns
The pronouns are:[
:
]
Evolution
Lower Fly River (Makayam and Baramu) reflexes of proto-Trans-New Guinea (pTNG) etyma:
References
*
External links
* Timothy Usher, New Guinea World
Proto–Lower Fly River
{{Languages of Papua New Guinea
Languages of Papua New Guinea
Anim languages