Mor is a nearly extinct
Trans–New Guinea language of Indonesia. It is spoken along the
Budidi River and the
Bomberai River
Bomberai Peninsula ( id, Semenanjung Bomberai), otherwise known as the Bird's Beak Peninsula ( id, Semenanjung Paruh Burung), is located in the Western New Guinea region, opposite to and to the south of the Bird's Head Peninsula. To the west lies ...
on the
Bomberai Peninsula
Bomberai Peninsula ( id, Semenanjung Bomberai), otherwise known as the Bird's Beak Peninsula ( id, Semenanjung Paruh Burung), is located in the Western New Guinea region, opposite to and to the south of the Bird's Head Peninsula. To the west lies ...
.
Classification
It may form a tentative independent branch of that family in the classification of
Malcolm Ross (2005), but Palmer (2018) classifies it as a
language isolate
Language isolates are languages that cannot be classified into larger language families. Korean and Basque are two of the most common examples. Other language isolates include Ainu in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, and Haida in North America. The nu ...
.
However, the only connections are the 1sg and 2 ng pronouns ''na-'' and ''a-'':
:
Usher classifies it with the other Trans–New Guinea languages of the
Berau Gulf.
Nouns
Nominal inflection for number in Mor is limited to only certain animate nouns, such as ''mor'' ‘man’ and ''mor-ir'' ‘men’. Other nouns do not inflect for number, such as ''is'' ‘bird/birds’.
Vocabulary
The following basic vocabulary words are from Voorhoeve (1975), as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:
:
A word list of Mor has also been collected by
Johannes Anceaux
Johannes Cornelis Anceaux (born 4 July 1920 in Schiedam, Netherlands; died 6 August 1988 in Leiderdorp, Netherlands) was a Dutch linguist and anthropologist known for his extensive work on Papuan and Austronesian languages.
Apart from his mon ...
.
[Smits, Leo and Clemens L. Voorhoeve. 1998. ''The J.C. Anceaux Collection of Wordlists of Irian Jaya Languages B: Non-Austronesian (Papuan) languages (Part II)''. Leiden-Jakarta: Department of Cultures and Languages of Southeast Asia and Oceania.]
References
External links
* Timothy Usher, New Guinea World
Mor
{{Papuan languages
Berau Gulf languages
Languages of western New Guinea
Endangered Papuan languages