The Border or Upper Tami languages are an independent
family
Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...
of
Papuan languages
The Papuan languages are the non- Austronesian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea, as well as neighbouring islands in Indonesia, Solomon Islands, and East Timor. It is a strictly geographical grouping, and does not imply ...
in
Malcolm Ross's version of the
Trans–New Guinea proposal.
Unlike the neighboring
Sepik languages
The Sepik or Sepik River languages are a language family, family of some 50 Papuan languages spoken in the Sepik River, Sepik river basin of northern Papua New Guinea, proposed by Donald Laycock in 1965 in a somewhat more limited form than prese ...
and many other Papuan language families of northern New Guinea, Border languages do not have grammatical gender or number (dual and plural forms).
Name
The Border family is named after the
Indonesia–Papua New Guinea border
The Indonesia–Papua New Guinea border is the international border between Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. The border, which divides the island of New Guinea in half, consists of two straight north–south lines connected by a short section runn ...
, which it spans. Other than the Border languages, the
Skou,
Senagi,
Pauwasi,
Anim, and
Yam families also span the Indonesia – Papua New Guinea border.
Classification history
Cowan (1957) tentatively proposed a "Tami" family, named after the
Tami River, that included the modern Border and
Sko language families. Some of the previously unclassified languages did turn out to be Sko, and were added to that family; the remainder (including the languages of the upper Tami) constitute the Border family.
Languages
Laycock classified Morwap as an isolate, but noted pronominal similarities with Border. Ross included Morwap in Border but noted that they do not appear to share any lexical similarities. However, his Morwap data were quite poor. Usher included it as a branch of Border.
Foley (2018)
Foley (2018) provides the following classification.
;Border family
*Taikat:
Auyi,
Taikat
*Bewani:
Ainbai,
Kilmeri,
Ningera,
Pagi
*Waris:
Amanab,
Auwe (
Simog),
Daonda,
Imonda,
Manem,
Senggi (
Viid),
Waina (
Sowanda),
Waris
Usher (2020)
The Border languages are:
Usher does not mention
Ningera, subsuming it into another language.
Pronouns
The pronouns that Ross (2005) reconstructs for proto-Border are the following:
:
Foley (2018) lists pronouns for the following five Border languages.
:
Cognates
Border family cognates (
Awyi,
Taikat,
Kilmeri,
Waris,
Imonda) listed by
Foley (2018):
:
Vocabulary comparison
The following basic vocabulary words are from Voorhoeve (1971, 1975), as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database.
The words cited constitute translation equivalents, whether they are cognate (e.g. ''mogor'', ''moŋla'', ''moŋgola'' for “leg”) or not (e.g. ''nakan'', ''past'', ''bosok'' for “nose”).
:
Migration history
200–250 years ago, Bewani speakers rapidly expanded and migrated towards neighboring regions, which started off chain migrations among various peoples of the region. The migration of Bewani speakers split up the territory of
Kwomtari speakers, and
Fas was displaced to the swampy area of Utai (). The displaced Fas speakers then expanded further east into
One
1 (one, unit, unity) is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the first and smallest positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers. This fundamental property has led to its unique uses in other fields, ranging from science to sp ...
territory, causing conflicts between the Fas and One peoples in the Kabore area ().
The
Pagei,
Bewani,
Bo, and
Ningera peoples expanded down the
Pual River to displace speakers of
Inner Skou and
Serra Hills
The Serra Hills are a mountain range in Sandaun Province, Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea a ...
languages. Inner Skou speakers were then forced to migrate, displacing
Barupu/
Warapu speakers (
Piore River branch). Bewani speakers, however, were not able to expand eastward into the lowland swampy areas occupied by
Busa and
Yale
Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and one of the nine colonial colleges ch ...
speakers, who were themselves pushed out of the more fertile hills into the lowland swamps. Westward expansion of
Bewani speakers was halted by fighting in
Kaure territory.
References
External links
Border languages database at TransNewGuinea.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Border Languages (New Guinea)
Northwest Papuan languages
Languages of Western New Guinea
Languages of Sandaun Province
Language families