East New Britain languages

East New Britain
Geographic distribution	Gazelle Peninsula, New Britain
Ethnicity	Baining people
Linguistic classification	One of the world's primary language families
Subdivisions	Baining Taulil–Butam
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	None

The East New Britain languages are a possible small language family spoken on the Gazelle Peninsula of New Britain in Papua New Guinea. They were classified as East Papuan languages by Wurm, but this does not now seem tenable. The only comparative work that has been done between the two branches of the proposed family is Ross (2001), which shows similarities in the pronouns.

Languages

The languages are:^{[ citation needed ]}

• Baining : Mali, Qaqet, Kairak, Simbali, Ura, ?Makolkol (extinct?)
• Taulil–Butam : Taulil, Butam (extinct)

Makolkol is unattested.

Glottolog does not accept that a connection between the two branches has been demonstrated. ^[1] Stebbins et al. (2018) note that further work needs to be done, and are uncertain how to explain the similarity in pronouns between the two families with the fact that the ancestors of the Taulil and Butam people had migrated from New Ireland and so presumably would have their closest relatives there. ^[2]

Pronouns

The pronouns Ross (2001) compares for East New Britain are as follows.

			1SG	2SG	3MSG	3FSG	1PL	2PL	3PL	1DU	2DU	3DU
proto-ENB			*ŋ(u)a	*ŋi(a)	*a	*E	*(d)udu	*ŋan(i)	*ta	*Nun	*(y)u	*i
Baining	free		ŋua	ŋia	ka	ki	uut	ŋen	ta~ra	uun	uin	ian~iam
	POSS		gua	gia	aa
Taulil	free	SBJ	ŋa	ŋi	aa	e	daa	yaa	taa	ŋu	yu	i~ip (3MDU), vitam (3FDU)
		OBJ	ŋaaŋ	ŋiŋ	aa	e	undu	ŋan	taa	ŋun	yu	ip (3MDU), vitam (3FDU)
	POSS		ŋa	ŋi	vaa	ve	du	ina	ina~ta	ŋunu	yu	ip (3MDU), ito (3FDU)
Butam	free		ŋa	ŋi	a	e	ur	ŋan	ta~ra	un	yu	ip
	POSS		ŋaŋ	ŋiŋ	vat	vet	(r)uru	ŋan	(i)ra	(n)un	...	ip

See also

• Baining people
• Papuan languages

References

1. Hammarström, Harald; Forke, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2020). "Baining". Glottolog 4.3.
2. Stebbins, Tonya; Evans, Bethwyn; Terrill, Angela (2018). "The Papuan languages of Island Melanesia". In Palmer, Bill (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide. The World of Linguistics. Vol. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 775–894. ISBN   978-3-11-028642-7.

• Dunn, Michael; Angela Terrill; Ger Reesink; Robert A. Foley; Stephen C. Levinson (2005). Structural Phylogenetics and the Reconstruction of Ancient Language History. Science magazine, 23 Sept. 2005, vol. 309, p 2072.
• Ross, Malcolm (2005). Pronouns as a preliminary diagnostic for grouping Papuan languages." In: Andrew Pawley, Robert Attenborough, Robin Hide and Jack Golson, eds, Papuan pasts: cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples, 15-66. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.

External links

• East New Britain languages database at TransNewGuinea.org