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Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an Oceanian country that occupies the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and its offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean north of Australia. Its capital, located along its southeastern coast, is Port Moresby. The western half of New Guinea forms the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua.
Melanesia is a subregion of Oceania extending from New Guinea island in the southwestern Pacific Ocean to the Arafura Sea, and eastward to Fiji.
The Papuan languages are the non-Austronesian and non-Australian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea, and neighbouring islands, by around 4 million people. It is a strictly geographical grouping, and does not imply a genetic relationship. The concept of Papuan peoples as distinct from Melanesians was first suggested and named by Sidney Herbert Ray in 1892.
West Papua is a province of Indonesia. It covers the two western peninsulas of the island of New Guinea along with nearby islands. The province is bordered to the north by the Pacific Ocean, to the west by the Halmahera Sea and the Ceram Sea, to the south by the Banda Sea, and to the east by the province of Papua and the Cenderawasih Bay. Manokwari is the capital, while Sorong is the largest city and the main gateway to the province. According to the 2010 census by Statistics Indonesia, West Papua recorded a population of 760,422. Inaugurated as a province in 2003, West Papua was initially named West Irian Jaya until 2007. The name West Papua itself is also used by the Free Papua Movement to refer the whole Western New Guinea. Consisting of twelve regencies and one city, the province enjoys a special autonomous status as granted by the Indonesian legislation. West Papua is well known by its Raja Ampat Islands which contains the richest marine biodiversity in the world.
The East Geelvink Bay or East Cenderawasih languages are a language family of a dozen Papuan languages along the eastern coast of Geelvink Bay in Indonesian Papua, which is also known as Sarera Bay or Cenderawasih.
The West Papuan languages are a proposed language family of about two dozen Papuan languages of the Bird's Head Peninsula of far western New Guinea, the island of Halmahera and its vicinity, spoken by about 220,000 people in all.
The Ramu–Lower Sepika.k.a.Lower Sepik–Ramu languages are a proposed family of 35 Papuan languages spoken in the Ramu and Sepik river basins of northern Papua New Guinea. These languages tend to have simple phonologies, with few consonants or vowels and usually no tones.
The Sepik languages are a family of some 50 Papuan languages spoken in the Sepik river basin of northern Papua New Guinea, proposed by Donald Laycock in 1965 in a somewhat more limited form than presented here. They tend to have simple phonologies, with few consonants or vowels and usually no tones.
The languages of Papua New Guinea today number over 850. These languages are spoken by the inhabited tribal groups of Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. In 2006, Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare stated that "Papua New Guinea has 832 living languages " making it the most linguistically diverse place on earth. Its official languages are Tok Pisin, English, Hiri Motu and Papua New Guinean Sign Language. Tok Pisin, an English-based creole, is the most widely spoken, serving as the country's lingua franca. Papua New Guinean Sign Language became the fourth official language in May 2015, and is used by the deaf population throughout the country.
The Kayagar languages are a small family of four closely related Trans–New Guinea languages:
The Teberan languages are a well established family of Papuan languages that Stephen Wurm (1975) grouped with the Pawaia language as a branch of the Trans–New Guinea phylum. Malcolm Ross (2005) tentatively retains both Teberan and Pawaia within TNG, but sees no other connection between them.
The Madang or Madang–Adelbert Range languages are a language family of Papua New Guinea. They were classified as a branch of Trans–New Guinea by Stephen Wurm, followed by Malcolm Ross. William A. Foley concurs that it is "highly likely" that the Madang languages are part of TNG, although the pronouns, the usual basis for classification in TNG, have been replaced in Madang. However, Timothy Usher finds no basis for concluding Madang is a branch of TNG.
The Southeast Papuan, Papuan Peninsula or "Bird's Tail" languages are a group of half a dozen small families of Papuan languages in the "Bird's Tail" of New Guinea that are part of the Trans–New Guinea (TNG) phylum.
New Guinea is a large island separated by a shallow sea from the rest of the Australian continent. It is the world's second-largest, after Greenland, covering a land area of 785,753 km2 (303,381 sq mi), and the largest wholly or partly within the Southern Hemisphere and Oceania.
The Yam languages, also known as the Morehead and Upper Maro River languages, are a family of Papuan languages. They include many of the languages south and west of the Fly River in Papua New Guinea and Indonesian West Papua.
Hattam is a divergent language of New Guinea. Apart from Mansim (Borai), formerly listed as a dialect, it is not closely related to any other language, and though Ross (2005) tentatively assigned it to the West Papuan languages, based on similarities in pronouns, Ethnologue and Glottolog list it as a language isolate or small independent family.
Dusner is a language spoken in the village of Dusner in the province of Papua, Indonesia. Dusner is highly endangered, and has been reported to have just three remaining speakers.
Dom is a Trans–New Guinea language of the Eastern Group of the Chimbu family, spoken in the Gumine and Sinasina District of the Chimbu province and in some other isolated settlements in the western highlands of Papua New Guinea.
"Sign language" was made the fourth official language of Papua New Guinea in 2015. In practice, this means the local form of sign language then being developed and standardized.
The North Papuan languages are a proposed language family of Papuan languages
References
- ↑ Tamagario at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
- ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Tamagario". Glottolog 3.0 . Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
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