The Trans-Fly–Bulaka River South-Central Papuan languages form a hypothetical
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 ...
. They include many of the languages west of the
Fly River
The Fly River is the third longest river on the island of New Guinea, after the Sepik and Mamberamo, with a total length of . It is the largest by volume of discharge in Oceania, the largest in the world without a single dam in its catchment, an ...
in southern Papua New Guinea into southern Indonesian
West Papua, plus a pair of languages on the
Bulaka River a hundred km further west.
The family was posited by
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. ...
as a branch of his 1975
Trans–New Guinea proposal. Wurm thought it likely that many of these languages would prove not to belong to Trans–New Guinea, but rather to have been heavily influenced by Trans–New Guinea languages.
Malcolm Ross (2005) concurred, and removed most of them.
Classification
None of the families are closely related; indeed, it is difficult to demonstrate a link between any of them. Wurm's 1975 TNG branch included the following eight demonstrated families:
*
Kiwaian, on the banks and east of the Fly River
*''
Waia'', north of the Fly delta
*
Tirio, on the western bank of the Fly River
*
Eastern Trans-Fly languages
The Eastern Trans-Fly (or Oriomo Plateau) languages are a small independent language family, family of Papuan languages spoken in the Oriomo Plateau to the west of the Fly River in New Guinea.
Classification
The languages constituted a branch ...
, south of the Fly delta
*
Pahoturi, west of the Eastern languages
*
Yam, up to and just across the Indonesian border
*''
Moraori'', between Upper Maro and the
Marind language
Marind is a Papuan language spoken in Malind District, Merauke Regency, Indonesia by over ten thousand people. Dialects are Southeast Marind, Gawir, Holifoersch, and Tugeri. Bian Marind (Northwest Marind), also known as Boven-Mbian, is divergent ...
*
Bulaka River, west of Marind
Ross (2005) accepted the TNG identity of Tirio, Moraori, and, tentatively, Kiwaian. He split off the four Eastern Trans-Fly languages as an independent family. The remainder of the family, which he calls ''South-Central Papuan'', is only tentatively retained: their pronouns are suggestive of a relationship, but this has not been demonstrated.
A more conservative approach would break up Wurm's Trans-Fly–Bulaka River entirely, with two or three of the families remaining within Trans–New Guinea, and five or six being independent. Evans (2012), for example, argues that the inclusion of the Yam language at least is not justified on present evidence. Timothy Usher treats the Bulaka River and Yam languages as separate families, and links the Pahoturi– clade to the
Eastern Trans-Fly languages
The Eastern Trans-Fly (or Oriomo Plateau) languages are a small independent language family, family of Papuan languages spoken in the Oriomo Plateau to the west of the Fly River in New Guinea.
Classification
The languages constituted a branch ...
.
Southern New Guinea linguistic area
A ''Southern New Guinea''
linguistic area
A sprachbund (, from , 'language federation'), also known as a linguistic area, area of linguistic convergence, or diffusion area, is a group of languages that share areal features resulting from geographical proximity and language contact. The ...
, which spans both Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, consisting of the following families is mentioned in Evans (2018).
*
Yelmek-Maklew - 500 speakers
*
Yam (Morehead-Upper Maro) - 3,000 speakers
*
Pahoturi River - just over 4,000 speakers
*
Oriomo (Eastern Trans-Fly) - 6,500 speakers
*
Trans-New Guinea (TNG)
**
Kolopom - just over 7,000 speakers
**''
Marori'' - fewer than 20 elderly speakers
**
Gogodala-Suki - 30,000 speakers
**
Kiwaian - 37,000 speakers
**
Anim
***
Marindic - 10,000 speakers
***
Tirio (Lower Fly)
***''
Ipiko'' (Inland Gulf)
Languages within the Southern New Guinea linguistic area generally share these typological features.
*lack of
tone
Tone may refer to:
Visual arts and color-related
* Tone (color theory), a mix of tint and shade, in painting and color theory
* Tone (color), the lightness or brightness (as well as darkness) of a color
* Toning (coin), color change in coins
* ...
(except Kuni-Boazi, possibly Marind, and some Kiwai dialects)
*complex verb morphology
*limited or no
gender
Gender is the range of social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral aspects of being a man (or boy), woman (or girl), or third gender. Although gender often corresponds to sex, a transgender person may identify with a gender other tha ...
(except for the four-way gender system in
Anim languages
The Anim or Fly River languages are a language family in south-central New Guinea
New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; , fossilized , also known as Papua or historically ) is the List of islands by area, world's second-largest island, w ...
, and the masculine vs. feminine contrast on undergoer-prefixes in the
Tonda languages
The Tonda languages form a branch of the Yam languages, Yam language family of southern New Guinea. There are over 10 languages.
Tonda languages share some areal features are shared with the Kolopom languages.
Languages
The Tonda languages are:
...
and some
Oriomo languages)
*lack of verb chaining or
switch-reference
In linguistics, switch-reference (SR) describes any clause-level morpheme that signals whether certain prominent arguments in 'adjacent' clauses are reference, coreferential. In most cases, it marks whether the subject (grammar), subject of the v ...
*single-word verbs form an
open class
Pronouns
The pronouns Ross reconstructs for the three families he keeps together are suggestively similar, but it has not been possible to reconstruct common forms:
;Proto-Yam (Proto–Morehead – Upper Maro)
:
;Proto-Pahoturi
:
;Proto-Bulaka River
:
See also
*
Trans-Fly languages
The Trans-Fly languages are a small family 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 ...
References
*
External links
South-Central Papuan languages database at TransNewGuinea.orgBulaka River on newguineaworld
{{DEFAULTSORT:Trans-Fly-Bulaka River languages
Proposed language families
Papuan languages