West Papuan | |
---|---|
(proposed) | |
Geographic distribution | Halmahera (North Maluku) and Bird's Head Peninsula (West Papua and Southwest Papua) |
Linguistic classification | One of the world's primary language families |
Subdivisions |
|
Glottolog | None |
![]() Distribution of the West Papuan languages |
The West Papuan languages are a proposed language family of about two dozen non-Austronesian languages of the Bird's Head Peninsula (Vogelkop or Doberai Peninsula) of far western New Guinea, the island of Halmahera and its vicinity, spoken by about 220,000 people in all. It is not established if they constitute a proper linguistic family or an areal network of genetically unrelated families.
The best known "West Papuan" language is Ternate (50,000 native speakers) of the island of the same name, which is a regional lingua franca. Along with neighboring Tidore, they were the languages of the rival medieval Ternate and Tidore sultanates, famous for their role in the spice trade.
The North Halmahera (NH) languages, spoken in the Maluku Islands, share some structural similarities with certain Papuan families in Melanesia, which was noted as far back as 1900. [1] : 193 In addition, there is a number of lexical and morphemic correspondences between NH and West Bird’s Head (WBH). [2] : 78 These are not easily explainable as chance resemblance. The question then is whether they are due to language contact (i.e., borrowing) or to common descent (i.e., genealogical inheritance). On the other hand, there is little evidence linking the individual families of the Vogelkop Peninsula to each other, with the relationship perhaps better considered areal (i.e., a Sprachbund). [3] : 626 In spite of the shared morpho-syntactic features, many of these languages exhibit little in the way of lexical resemblance. [4]
It is not clear if East Bird’s Head (Mantion–Meyah and Hatam–Mansim), Maybrat, Mpur, and Abun are related to any of the remaining groups. [3] However, a connection between WBH/NH and the Yawa languages appears to be relatively likely. [3] : 626 The South Bird’s Head and Timor–Alor–Pantar families, while included in older formulations of the proposal, are no longer thought of as part of West Papuan. [5]
All of these languages show traces of old Austronesian influence. [4] Much of the basic vocabulary in NH (~30%) can be linked with various Austronesian sources, suggesting a long period of contact. [1] : 194–195 The languages of the Bird’s Head have undergone extensive contact with the Cenderawasih Bay languages, such as Biak. [3] : 625
The term "West Papuan" has also been used in an areal sense, encompassing most of the non-Austronesian languages of Halmahera and Bird's Head. [5]
The German linguist Wilhelm Schmidt first linked the West Bird's Head and North Halmahera languages in 1900. In 1957 H.K.J. Cowan linked them to the non-Austronesian languages of Timor as well. Stephen Wurm believed that although traces of West Papuan languages were to be found in the languages of Timor, as well as those of Aru and Great Andaman, this was due to a substratum and that these languages should be classified as Trans–New Guinea, Austronesian, and Andamanese, respectively. Indeed, most of the languages of East Nusa Tenggara and Maluku appear to have some non-Austronesian influence. [6]
In 2005, Malcolm Ross made a tentative proposal, based on the forms of their pronouns, that the West Papuan languages form one of three branches of an extended West Papuan family that also includes the Yawa languages, and a newly proposed East Bird's Head – Sentani family as a third branch.
Søren Wichmann (2013) [7] considers West Bird's Head, Abun, and Maybrat to form a unified family, but does not accept West Papuan as a coherent language family.
Timothy Usher, also somewhat tentatively, accepts Yawa and East Bird's Head, but not Sentani, as part of West Papuan itself, so the family can remain under that name. [8]
Holton and Klamer (2018) do not unequivocally accept the unity of West Papuan, but note that certain proposals linking "West Papuan" groups together may eventually turn out to be fruitful. [3] Ger Reesink suggests that the West Papuan family should be considered an areal network of unrelated linguistic families, noting the lack of adequate evidence for genetic relatedness. [5]
The pronouns Ross reconstructs for proto-West Papuan are,
I | *da, *di- | exclusive we | *mam, *mi- |
inclusive we | *po- | ||
thou | *ni, *na, *a- | you | *nan, *ni- |
she | *mV | they | *yo, *ana, *yo- |
These are shared by the "core" West Papuan families. Hattam reflects only "I" and "thou", and Amberbaken only "thou", "you", and "she".
Ross's Extended West Papuan languages have forms in *d for "I" and *m for "we". (Most Yawa forms of "we" have m, such as imama, but they are too diverse for an easy reconstruction.) These are found in all branches of the family except for the Amberbaken isolate.
Ross's West Papuan proper is distinguished from Yawa and EBH-Sentani in having forms like na or ni for the second-person singular ("thou") pronoun.
family | I | thou | we |
---|---|---|---|
West Papuan | *da, *di- | *na, *ni, *a- | *mam, *mi |
EBH-Sentani | *da, *di | *ba~wa, *bi | *meme, *me |
Yava | *rei | *wein | (imama etc.) |
Word order is SVO in the West Bird's Head family and in western North Halmahera languages (Ternate, Tidore, West Makian, and Sahu; due to Austronesian influence). SVO word order is also present in the isolates Abun, Mpur, and Maibrat. [3]
The South Bird's Head family generally has SOV word order, although SVO word order is also permitted in transitive clauses. The Timor-Alor-Pantar languages also have verb-final word order. [3]
All Papuan languages of East Nusantara have five or more vowels. [3]
Abun and Mpur are fully tonal languages, with Mpur having 4 lexical tones, and Abun having 3 lexical tones. Meyah and Sougb are pitch-accent languages. All other languages of the Bird's Head Peninsula are non-tonal. [9] : 134–135
Of all the Papuan languages spoken in the Bird's Head Peninsula, Abun has the largest consonant inventory with 20 consonants, while neighboring Maybrat has the smallest with 11 consonants. Large consonant inventories similar to that of Abun are also found in the North Halmahera languages, such as Tobelo, Tidore, and Sahu. [3] : 583
The following is a basic vocabulary table of two West Bird's Head languages (WBH) (Moi and Tehit) and three language isolates (Mpur, Abun, Maibrat), quoted by Holton & Klamer (2018) [3] from Miedema & Reesink (2004: 34) and (Reesink 2005: 202); these show diverse non-cognate forms among Papuan languages of the Bird's Head Peninsula: [10] [11]
gloss | Moi (WBH) | Tehit (WBH) | Mpur | Abun | Maibrat |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
arm/hand | nin | naa | wom | cim | atem |
leg/foot | eelik | deit | pet | wis | ao |
house | keik | mbol | jan | nu | amah |
good | bok | hnjo | mafun | ndo | mof |
dog | oofun | mqaan | per | ndar | mtah |
pig | baik | qorik | dwaw | nok | fane |
chicken | kelem tole | kokok | kokor | dam kukur | kok |
louse | -jam | hain | im | im | sruom |
water/river | kla | kla | war | aja | |
banana | o | ogo | fa | weu | apit |
Below are lexical lookalikes between North Halmahera languages (NH) (Galela and Pagu) and West Bird's Head languages (WBH) (Moi and Tehit) from Voorhoeve (1988: 194), as quoted by Holton & Klamer (2018): [1] [3]
gloss | Galela (NH) | Pagu (NH) | Moi (WBH) | Tehit (WBH) |
---|---|---|---|---|
‘head’ | sahe | saek | sawa | safakos |
‘fruit’, ‘eye’ | sopo | sowok | suwo | sfuon |
‘egg’ | gosi | – | – | esyen |
‘man’ | ya-nau | naul | ne | nau |
‘meat’ | lake | lakem | kem | qan |
‘tree’ | gota | – | – | kot |
‘water’ | ake | akel | kala | kla |
‘drink’ | oke | okel | ook | ooqo |
‘stab’ | saka | sakal | saa | sqaa |
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 a genetic relationship.
The Mantion–Meax, Mantion–Meyah, or (South) East Bird's Head languages are a language family of three languages in the "Bird's Head Peninsula" of western New Guinea, spoken by all together 20,000 people.
The Yawa languages, also known as Yapen languages, are a small family of two closely related Papuan languages, Yawa and Saweru, which are often considered to be divergent dialects of a single language. They are spoken on central Yapen Island and nearby islets, in Cenderawasih Bay, Indonesian Papua, which they share with the Austronesian Yapen languages.
The South Halmahera–West New Guinea (SHWNG) languages are a branch of the Malayo-Polynesian languages, found in the islands and along the shores of the Halmahera Sea in the Indonesian province of North Maluku and of Cenderawasih Bay in the provinces of Papua and West Papua. There are 38 languages.
Western Pantar, sometimes referred to by the name of one of its dialects, Lamma, is a Papuan language spoken in the western part of Pantar island in the Alor archipelago of Indonesia. Western Pantar is spoken widely in the region by about 10,000 speakers. Although speakers often use Malay in political, religious, and educational contexts, Western Pantar remains the first language of children of the region, and is acquired to some extent by immigrants.
The Bird's Head Peninsula or Doberai Peninsula is a large peninsula that makes up the northwest portion of the island of New Guinea, comprising the Indonesian provinces of Southwest Papua and West Papua. It is often referred to as The Vogelkop, and is so named because its shape looks like a bird's head on the island of New Guinea. The peninsula at the opposite end of the island is called the Bird's Tail Peninsula. The peninsula just to the south is called the Bomberai Peninsula.
Tidore is a language of North Maluku, Indonesia, spoken by the Tidore people. The language is centered on the island of Tidore, but it is also spoken in some areas of the neighbouring Halmahera. Historically, it was the primary language of the Sultanate of Tidore, a major Moluccan Muslim state.
Bomberai Peninsula is located in the Western New Guinea region. It is south of the Bird's Head Peninsula, and Bintuni Bay separates the two peninsulas. To the west lies the Sebakor Bay and to the south Kamrau Bay. On the southeast Arguni Bay lies between the peninsula and the Bird's Neck Isthmus.
The South Bird's Head or South Doberai languages are three families of Papuan languages. They form part of the Trans–New Guinea languages in the classifications of Malcolm Ross (2005) and Timothy Usher (2020), though Pawley and Hammarström (2018) do not consider them to be part of Trans–New Guinea. However, according to Dryer (2022), based on a preliminary quantitative analysis of data from the ASJP database, South Bird's Head languages are likely to be a subgroup of Trans–New Guinea.
The Alor–Pantar languages are a family of clearly related Papuan languages spoken on islands of the Alor archipelago near Timor in southern Indonesia. They may be most closely related to the Papuan languages of eastern Timor, but this is not yet clear. A more distant relationship with the Trans–New Guinea languages of the Bomberai peninsula of Western New Guinea has been proposed based on pronominal evidence, but though often cited has never been firmly established.
The Timor–Alor–Pantar (TAP) languages are a family of languages spoken in Timor, Kisar, and the Alor archipelago in Southern Indonesia. It is the westernmost Papuan language family that survives, and one of two such outlier families in east Nusantara.
Ternate is a language of northern Maluku, eastern Indonesia. It is spoken by the Ternate people, who inhabit the island of Ternate, as well as many other areas of the archipelago. It is the dominant indigenous language of North Maluku, historically important as a regional lingua franca. A North Halmahera language, it is unlike most languages of Indonesia which belong to the Austronesian language family.
West Bird's Head languages are a small family of poorly documented Papuan languages spoken on the Bird's Head Peninsula of New Guinea.
Mpur is a language isolate spoken in and around Mpur and Amberbaken Districts in Tambrauw Regency of the Bird's Head Peninsula, New Guinea. 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, Palmer (2018), Ethnologue, and Glottolog list it as a language isolate.
Abun, also known as Yimbun, Anden, Manif, or Karon Pantai, is a Papuan language spoken by the Abun people along the northern coast of the Bird's Head Peninsula in Sausapor District, Tambrauw Regency. It is not closely related to any other language, and though Ross (2005) assigned it to the West Papuan family, based on similarities in pronouns, Palmer (2018), Ethnologue, and Glottolog list it as a language isolate.
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The North Halmahera (NH) languages are a family of languages spoken in the northern and eastern parts of the island of Halmahera and some neighboring islands in Indonesia. The southwestern part of the island is occupied by the unrelated South Halmahera languages, which are a subgroup of Austronesian. They may be most closely related to the languages of the Bird's Head region of West Papua, but this is not well-established.
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Gerard P. Reesink is a Dutch linguist who specializes in Papuan languages.