The Finisterre–Huon languages comprise the largest

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 ...

within the

Trans–New Guinea languages Trans–New Guinea (TNG) is an extensive Language family, family of Papuan languages spoken on the island of New Guinea and neighboring islands, a region corresponding to the country Papua New Guinea as well as Western New Guinea, parts of Indone ...

(TNG) in the classification of Malcolm Ross. They were part of the original TNG proposal, and William A. Foley considers their TNG identity to be established. The languages share a small closed class of verbs taking pronominal object prefixes some of which are cognate (Suter 2012), strong morphological evidence that they are related.

History of classification

Huon and Finisterre, and then the connection between them, were identified by Kenneth McElhanon (1967, 1970). When McElhanon compared notes with his colleague Clemens Voorhoeve, who was working on the languages of southern Irian Jaya, they developed the concept of Trans–New Guinea. Apart from the evidence which unites them, the Finisterre and Huon families are clearly valid

language families A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term ''family'' is a metaphor borrowed from biology, with the tree model used in historical linguistics ana ...

in their own right, each consisting of several fairly-well defined branches.

Pronouns

Ross (2005) reconstructs the pronouns as follows: : These are not all coherent: 3sg *ya and *i are found in Huon, for example, while 3sg *wa is found in Finisterre. In other cases, however, the multiple forms are found in both branches.

Vocabulary comparison

The following basic vocabulary words are from McElhanon & Voorhoeve (1970) and McElhanon (1967), as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database. The words cited constitute translation equivalents, whether they are cognate (e.g. ''hɔme'', ''samo'' for “nose”) or not (e.g. ''mic-'', ''sot'', ''dzɔŋɔ'' for “tooth”). Notice the very low number of cognate triplets, or even pairs, among these languages. :

Evolution

Finisterre-Huon reflexes of proto-Trans-New Guinea (pTNG) etyma are: Kâte language: *''bɔruŋ'' ‘flame’ < *mbalaŋ ‘flame’ *''butoŋ'' ‘fingernail’ < *mb(i,u)t(i,u)C *''bekɔ'' ‘orphan’ < *mbVŋga(-masi) *''masiŋ'' ‘widow’ < *masi *''sambɔŋ'' ‘sky’ < *sambV ‘cloud’ *''tofeʔ'' ‘saliva’ < *si(mb,p)atV *''lo-'' ‘take’ < *(nd,t)a- *''munduŋ'' ‘inner yolk of egg’ < *mundun ‘internal organs’ *''go'' ‘2sg’ < *ŋga *''hɔmo-'' ‘die’ < *kumV- *''bɔriʔ'' ‘glitter, flash of lightning’ < *(m,mb)elak ‘light, lightning’ *''mi'' ‘not’ < *ma- ‘not’ *''maŋu(zo)'' ‘to vomit’ < *mV(k,ŋ)V t(e,i)- *''ame(ʔ)'' ‘breast’ < *amu *''tsimin(uŋ)'' ‘stiff coarse hair’ < * d,smu ,t ‘hair’ *''imeŋ'' ‘louse’ < *iman ‘louse’ *''no'' ‘1sg’ < *na ‘1sg’ *''nɔ-'' ‘eat’ < *na- Selepet language: *''balam'' ‘flame’ < *mbalaŋ *''(ni)bilim'' ‘tongue’ < *mbilaŋ *''kɔlɔp'' ‘fire’ < *kend(o,u)p *''kɔlip'' ‘long’ < *kuta(mb,p)(a,u) *''irak'' ‘new’ < *kVtak *''sak'' ‘sand’ < *sa(ŋg,k)asin *''somot'' ‘hair’ < *(s,nd)umu(n,t) *''madu'' ‘orphan’ < *masi *''si-'' ‘burn’ < *nj(a,e,i)- ‘burn’ *''ga'' ‘2sg’ < *ŋga *''kaku-'' ‘carry on shoulder’ < *kakV- *''kɔu'' ‘ashes’ < *kambu ‘ashes’ *''belek'' ‘lightning’ < *(m,mb)elak *''ibi'' ‘name’ < *imbi *''mete'' ‘forehead’ < *me(n,t)e ‘head’ *''man-'' ‘live, dwell’ < *mVn *''imen'' ‘louse’ < *iman ‘louse’ *''(n)am'' ‘breast, milk’ < *amu ‘breast’

References

Bibliography