The Orya–Tor languages are a
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 just over a dozen
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 ...
spoken in
Western New Guinea
Western New Guinea, also known as Papua, Indonesian New Guinea, and Indonesian Papua, is the western half of the island of New Guinea, formerly Dutch and granted to Indonesia in 1962. Given the island is alternatively named Papua, the region ...
, Indonesia.
Classification
The Tor family, named after the
Tor River, is clearly established. Its closest relative appears to be
Orya.
Stephen Wurm
Stephen Adolphe Wurm (, ; 19 August 1922 – 24 October 2001) was a Hungarian-born Australian linguist.
Early life
Wurm was born in Budapest, the second child to the German-speaking Adolphe Wurm and the Hungarian-speaking Anna Novroczky. ...
(1975) linked Orya and the Tor languages with the
Lakes Plain languages, forming a branch of his
Trans–New Guinea phylum. Clouse (1997) found no evidence of such a connection.
Malcolm Ross (2005) linked them instead with part of another erstwhile branch of TNG in a
Tor–Kwerba proposal, and Usher makes a broadly similar proposal. ''Glottolog'' accepts only the link with Orya as having been demonstrated.
Languages
Foley (2018)
Foley (2018) provides the following classification.
Foley considers the inclusion of
Sause within the Tor family to be questionable due to insufficient lexical evidence.
See
Kapauri–Sause languages.
Usher (2020)
Timothy Usher provides the following classification:
[
Jofotek and Mander are found to be the same language, whereas the ISO conflation of Edwas and Bonerif is found to be spurious.
A Wares language is not attested. (The Wares people are not known to have a distinct language, and the language of the village of Wares is Mawes.)][Reported also in Hammarström (2015) Ethnologue 16/17/18th editions: a comprehensive review: online appendices]
Proto-language
Phonemes
Usher (2020) reconstructs the consonant inventory tentatively as follows:[New Guinea World, Orya–Tor River]
/ref>
:
The stop *d is marginal and only occurs initially. *ɾ does not occur initially.
:
Pronouns
The pronouns Ross reconstructs for proto-Orya–Tor are,
:
Usher (2020) reconstructs the pronouns of the East Tor Coast branch as:[
:
]
Basic vocabulary
Some lexical reconstructions by Usher (2020) are:[
:
]
References
External links
* Timothy Usher, New Guinea World
Proto–Orya – Tor River
{{DEFAULTSORT:Orya-Tor languages
Foja Range languages