The Turama–Kikorian 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 ...
identified by
Arthur Capell
Arthur Capell (28 March 1902 – 10 August 1986) was an Australian linguist, who made major contributions to the study of Australian languages, Austronesian languages and Papuan languages.
Early life
Capell was born in Newtown, New South W ...
(1962) and part of 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) family in the classifications of
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) and
Malcolm Ross (2005). The family is named after the
Turama River and
Kikori River of southern
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 and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...
; the alternative name is based more narrowly on the
Omati River.
Languages
The four languages are clearly related, though Rumu is divergent. Ross states that Rumu links the other (Turama) languages to TNG.
* Turama–Kikorian family
** ''
Rumu (Kairi)'' isolate
** Turama (Omati River) branch:
Omati,
Ikobi
Proto-language
Some lexical reconstructions by Usher (2020) are:
[Timothy Usher, New Guinea World]
Proto–Rumu – Omati River
/ref>
:
Basic vocabulary
The following basic vocabulary words are from Franklin (1973), as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database.
References
*
External links
* Timothy Usher, New Guinea World
Proto–Rumu – Omati River
* (ibid.
Proto–Omati River
{{DEFAULTSORT:Turama-Kikorian languages
Kikorian languages
Languages of Gulf Province