Papuan languages
Papuan | |
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(geographic) | |
Geographic distribution | Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, East Timor |
Linguistic classification | not genetically related |
![]() The historical distribution of the Papuan languages, in red. Tan is Austronesian and grey the historical range of Australian 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.[1] It is a strictly geographical grouping, and does not imply a genetic relationship.
New Guinea is the most linguistically diverse region in the world. Besides the Austronesian languages, there arguably are some 800 languages divided into perhaps sixty small language families, with unclear relationships to each other or to any other languages, plus many language isolates. The majority of the Papuan languages are spoken on the island of New Guinea, with a number spoken in the Bismarck Archipelago, Bougainville Island and the Solomon Islands to the east, and in Halmahera, Timor and the Alor archipelago to the west. The westernmost language, Tambora in Sumbawa, is extinct. One Papuan language, Meriam, is spoken within the national borders of Australia, in the eastern Torres Strait.
Several languages of Flores, Sumba, and other islands of eastern Indonesia are classified as Austronesian but have large numbers of non-Austronesian words in their basic vocabulary and non-Austronesian grammatical features. It has been suggested that these may have originally been non-Austronesian languages that have borrowed nearly all of their vocabulary from neighboring Austronesian languages, but no connection with the Papuan languages of Timor has been found. In general, the Central–Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages are marked by a significant historical Papuan influence, lexically, grammatically, and phonologically, and this is responsible for much of the diversity of the Austronesian language family.
Concept
[edit]The "Papuan languages" are a strictly geographical grouping, and does not imply a genetic relationship. The concept of Papuan (non-Austronesian) speaking Melanesians as distinct from Austronesian-speaking Melanesians was first suggested and named by Sidney Herbert Ray in 1892.[2]
In accordance with William A. Foley (1986):
The term 'Papuan languages' must not be taken in the same sense as 'Austronesian languages'. While all Austronesian languages are genetically related in one family, in the sense that they all descend from a common ancestral language called Proto-Austronesian spoken some 6,000 years ago... [Papuan languages] do not all trace their origins back to a single ancestral language... when a language is termed 'Papuan', this claims nothing more than that a language is not Austronesian.[3]
Speaker numbers
[edit]Most Papuan languages are spoken by hundreds to thousands of people; the most populous are found in the New Guinea highlands, where a few exceed a hundred thousand. These include Western Dani (180,000 in 1993) and Ekari (100,000 reported 1985) in the western (Indonesian) highlands, and Enga (230,000 in 2000), Huli (150,000 reported 2011), and Melpa (130,000 reported 1991) in the eastern (PNG) highlands. To the west of New Guinea, the largest languages are Makasae in East Timor (100,000 in 2010) and Galela in Halmahera (80,000 reported 1990). To the east, Terei (27,000 reported 2003) and Naasioi (20,000 reported 2007) are spoken on Bougainville.
History of classification
[edit]Although there has been relatively little study of these languages compared with the Austronesian family, there have been three preliminary attempts at large-scale genealogical classification, by Joseph Greenberg, Stephen Wurm, and Malcolm Ross. The largest family posited for the Papuan region is the Trans–New Guinea phylum, consisting of the majority of Papuan languages and running mainly along the highlands of New Guinea. The various high-level families may represent distinct migrations into New Guinea, presumably from the west.[4] Since perhaps only a quarter of Papuan languages have been studied in detail, linguists' understanding of the relationships between them will continue to be revised.
Statistical analyses designed to pick up signals too faint to be detected by the comparative method, though of disputed validity, suggest five major Papuan stocks (roughly Trans–New Guinea, West, North, East, and South Papuan languages);[5] long-range comparison has also suggested connections between selected languages, but again the methodology is not orthodox in historical linguistics.[6]
The Great Andamanese languages may be related to some western Papuan languages, but are not themselves covered by the term Papuan.[4]
Wurm (1975)
[edit]The most widely used classification of Papuan languages is that of Stephen Wurm, listed below with the approximate number of languages in each family in parentheses. This was the scheme used by Ethnologue prior to Ross's classification (below). It is based on very preliminary work, much of it typological, and Wurm himself has stated that he does not expect it to hold up well to scrutiny. Other linguists, including William A. Foley, have suggested that many of Wurm's phyla are based on areal features and structural similarities, and accept only the lowest levels of his classification, most of which he inherited from prior taxonomies. Foley (1986) divides Papuan languages into over sixty small language families, plus a number of isolates. However, more recently Foley has accepted the broad outline if not the details of Wurm's classification, as he and Ross have substantiated a large portion of Wurm's Trans–New Guinea phylum.
According to Ross (see below), the main problem with Wurm's classification is that he did not take contact-induced change into account. For example, several of the main branches of his Trans–New Guinea phylum have no vocabulary in common with other Trans–New Guinea languages, and were classified as Trans–New Guinea because they are similar grammatically. However, there are also many Austronesian languages that are grammatically similar to Trans–New Guinea languages due to the influence of contact and bilingualism. Similarly, several groups that do have substantial basic vocabulary in common with Trans–New Guinea languages are excluded from the phylum because they do not resemble it grammatically.
Wurm believed the Papuan languages arrived in several waves of migration with some of the earlier languages (perhaps including the Sepik–Ramu languages) being related to the Australian languages,[7][8] a later migration bringing the West Papuan, Torricelli and the East Papuan languages[7] and a third wave bringing the most recent pre-Austronesian migration, the Trans–New Guinea family.[7]
Papuan families proposed by Wurm (1975) (with approximate numbers of languages)
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Two of Wurm's isolates have since been linked as the and since Wurm's time another isolate and two languages belonging to a new family have been discovered,
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Foley (2003)
[edit]Foley summarized the state of the literature.[9] Besides Trans–New Guinea and families possibly belonging in TNG (see), he accepted the proposals for,
Papuan families other than TNG accepted by Foley (2003)
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Ross (2005)
[edit]Malcolm Ross re-evaluated Wurm's proposal on purely lexical grounds. That is, he looked at shared vocabulary, and especially shared idiosyncrasies analogous to English I and me vs. German ich and mich. The poor state of documentation of Papuan languages restricts this approach largely to pronouns. Nonetheless, Ross believes that he has been able to validate much of Wurm's classification, albeit with revisions to correct for Wurm's partially typological approach. (See Trans–New Guinea languages.) Ethnologue (2009) largely follows Ross.
It has been suggested that the families that appear when comparing pronouns may be due to pronoun borrowing rather than to genealogical relatedness. However, Ross argues that Papuan languages have closed-class pronoun systems, which are resistant to borrowing, and in any case that the massive number of languages with similar pronouns in a family like Trans–New Guinea preclude borrowing as an explanation. Also, he shows that the two cases of alleged pronoun borrowing in New Guinea are simple coincidence, explainable as regular developments from the protolanguages of the families in question: as earlier forms of the languages are reconstructed, their pronouns become less similar, not more. (Ross argues that open-class pronoun systems, where borrowings are common, are found in hierarchical cultures such as those of Southeast Asia and Japan, where pronouns indicate details of relationship and social status rather than simply being grammatical pro-forms as they are in the more egalitarian New Guinea societies.)
Ross has proposed 23 Papuan language families and 9–13 isolates. However, because of his more stringent criteria, he was not able to find enough data to classify all Papuan languages, especially many isolates that have no close relatives to aid in their classification.
Ross also found that the Lower Mamberamo languages (or at least the Warembori language—he had insufficient data on Pauwi) are Austronesian languages that have been heavily transformed by contact with Papuan languages, much as the Takia language has. The Reef Islands – Santa Cruz languages of Wurm's East Papuan phylum were a potential 24th family, but subsequent work has shown them to be highly divergent Austronesian languages as well.
Note that while this classification may be more reliable than past attempts, it is based on a single parameter, pronouns, and therefore must remain tentative. Although pronouns are conservative elements in a language, they are short and utilise a reduced set of the language's phonemic inventory. Both phenomena greatly increase the possibility of chance resemblances, especially when they are not confirmed by lexical similarities.[citation needed]
Papuan families proposed by Ross (2005)
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Sorted by location north Irian:
Former isolates classified by Ross:
Languages reassigned to the Austronesian family:
Unclassified due to lack of data:
Unaccounted for:
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Wichmann (2013)
[edit]Søren Wichmann (2013) accepts the following 109 groups as coherent Papuan families, based on computational analyses performed by the Automated Similarity Judgment Program (ASJP) combined with Harald Hammarström's (2012) classification.[10] Some of the groups could turn out to be related to each other, but Wichmann (2013) lists them as separate groups pending further research.
9 families have been broken up into separate groups in Wichmann's (2013) classification, which are:
- Biksi (2 groups)
- Dibiyaso-Doso-Turumsa (2 groups)
- Kwalean (2 groups)
- Lower Sepik-Ramu (5 groups)
- Morehead-Wasur (2 groups)
- Nuclear Trans-New Guinea (16 groups)
- Pauwasi (2 groups: Western and Eastern)
- Sentanic (2 groups)
- Sko (2 groups)
An automated computational analysis (ASJP 4) by Müller, Velupillai, Wichmann et al. (2013)[13] found lexical similarities among the following language groups. Note that some of these automatically generated groupings are due to chance resemblances.[citation needed]
Selected Papuan family groupings in the ASJP World Language Trees of Lexical Similarity (version 4)
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Palmer (2018)
[edit]Bill Palmer et al. (2018) propose 43 independent families and 37 language isolates in the Papuasphere, comprising a total of 862 languages.[14] A total of 80 independent groups are recognized. While Pawley & Hammarström's internal classification of Trans-New Guinea largely resembles a composite of Usher's and Ross' classifications, Palmer et al. do not address the more tentative families that Usher proposes, such as Northwest New Guinea.
The coherence of the South Bird's Head, East Bird's Head, Pauwasi, Kwomtari, and Central Solomons families are uncertain, and hence are marked below as "tentative."[15][16][17][18]
Papuan families proposed by Palmer (2018)
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Glottolog 4.0 (2019)
[edit]Glottolog 4.0 (2019), based partly on Usher, recognizes 70 independent families and 55 isolates.[19]
Usher & Suter (2024)
[edit]![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/db/NewGuineaSelonUsher.png/440px-NewGuineaSelonUsher.png)
The following families are identified by Timothy Usher and Edgar Suter in their NewGuineaWorld project:[20]
Papuan families proposed by Usher & Suter (2024)
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In addition, poorly attested Karami remains unclassified. Extinct Tambora and the East Papuan languages have not been addressed, except to identify Yele as an Austronesian language.
Greenberg's classification
[edit]Joseph Greenberg proposed an Indo-Pacific phylum containing the (Northern) Andamanese languages, all Papuan languages, and the Tasmanian languages, but not the Australian Aboriginal languages. Very few linguists accept his grouping. It is distinct from the Trans–New Guinea phylum of the classifications below.
External relations
[edit]Joseph Greenberg proposed that the Andamanese languages (or at least the Great Andamanese languages) off the coast of Burma are related to the Papuan or West Papuan languages. Stephen Wurm stated that the lexical similarities between Great Andamanese and the West Papuan and Timor–Alor families "are quite striking and amount to virtual formal identity [...] in a number of instances". However, he considered this not evidence of a connection between (Great) Andamanese and Trans–New Guinea, but of a substratum from an earlier migration to New Guinea from the west.
Greenberg also suggested a connection to the Tasmanian languages. However, the Tasmanian peoples were isolated for perhaps 10,000 years, their disappearance wiped out their languages before much was recorded of them, and few linguists expect that they will ever be linked to another language family[citation needed].
William A. Foley (1986) noted lexical similarities between R. M. W. Dixon's 1980 reconstruction of proto-Australian and the languages of the East New Guinea Highlands.[21] He believed that it was naïve to expect to find a single Papuan or Australian language family when New Guinea and Australia had been a single landmass for most of their human history, having been separated by the Torres Strait only 8000 years ago, and that a deep reconstruction would likely include languages from both. However, Dixon later abandoned his proto-Australian proposal,[22] and Foley's ideas need to be re-evaluated in light of recent research. Wurm also suggested the Sepik–Ramu languages have similarities with the Australian languages, but believed this may be due to a substratum effect,[8] but nevertheless believed that the Australian languages represent a linguistic group that existed in New Guinea before the arrival of the Papuan languages (which he believed arrived in at least two different groups).[7]
Typology
[edit]The West Papuan, Lower Mamberamo, and most Torricelli languages are all left-headed, as well as the languages of New Britain and New Ireland. These languages all have SVO word order, with the exception of the language isolate Kuot, which has VSO word order. All other Papuan languages are right-headed.[23]
Tonal Papuan languages include the Sko, Lepki, Kaure, Kembra, Lakes Plain, and Keuw languages.[23]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]Notes
[edit]- ^ "Papuan". www.languagesgulper.com. Retrieved 2017-10-15.
- ^ Ray 1892.
- ^ Foley 1986, pp. 2–3.
- ^ a b Wurm 1975
- ^ Reesink, Ger; Singer, Ruth; Dunn, Michael (November 17, 2009). "Explaining the Linguistic Diversity of Sahul Using Population Models". PLOS Biology. 7 (11): e1000241. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1000241. PMC 2770058. PMID 19918360.
- ^ Murray Gell-Mann et al. (2009) "Distant Language Relationship: The Current Perspective", Journal of Language Relationship·Вопросы языкового родства
- ^ a b c d Moseley, Christopher (2007). Encyclopedia of the world's endangered languages. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-7007-1197-0.
- ^ a b Bellwood, Peter; Fox, James J.; Tryon, Darrell (2006). Bellwood, Peter; Fox, James J; Tryon, Darrell (eds.). The Austronesians. ANU Press. doi:10.22459/A.09.2006. ISBN 9780731521326 – via press.anu.edu.au.
- ^ "DELP - Papuan Languages". sydney.edu.au.
- ^ Wichmann, Søren (2013). "A classification of Papuan languages" (PDF). In Hammarström, Harald; van den Heuvel, Wilco (eds.). History, contact and classification of Papuan languages. Language and Linguistics in Melanesia. Vol. Special Issue 2012. Port Moresby: Linguistic Society of Papua New Guinea. pp. 313–386.
- ^ ISO 639-3 codes: abw, ali, bie, bql, buq, dmc, hih, kgu, mhl, mjj, mkr, mmi, mvq, ped, pla, prw, sks, ukg, wnb, wnu, xow, ybm, yrw
- ^ ISO 639-3 codes: aey, asd, awm, bbd, bbr, bmh, bmx, boj, bpi, bpm, bpu, dnr, duk, eri, fad, gap, gaw, ggl, gmu, gyb, igo, jil, klm, kmf, kop, lei, mcz, mdc, mlp, mqe, mqv, mqw, mtc, nbk, pnr, pup, rea, rmp, rpt, six, snr, snx, snz, spd, sra, ssd, ssj, swm, tya, urg, urw, usu, utu, wmc, wtf, xes, xsp, ybo, ydk, ynl
- ^ Müller, André, Viveka Velupillai, Søren Wichmann, Cecil H. Brown, Eric W. Holman, Sebastian Sauppe, Pamela Brown, Harald Hammarström, Oleg Belyaev, Johann-Mattis List, Dik Bakker, Dmitri Egorov, Matthias Urban, Robert Mailhammer, Matthew S. Dryer, Evgenia Korovina, David Beck, Helen Geyer, Pattie Epps, Anthony Grant, and Pilar Valenzuela. 2013. ASJP World Language Trees of Lexical Similarity: Version 4 (October 2013).
- ^ Palmer, Bill (2018). "Language families of the New Guinea Area". 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. 1–20. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.
- ^ Foley, William A. (2005). "Linguistic prehistory in the Sepik-Ramu basin". In Andrew Pawley; Robert Attenborough; Robin Hide; Jack Golson (eds.). Papuan pasts: cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. pp. 109–144. ISBN 0858835622. OCLC 67292782.
- ^ Holton, Gary; Klamer, Marian (2018). "The Papuan languages of East Nusantara and the Bird's Head". 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. 569–640. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Pawley, Andrew; Hammarström, Harald (2018). "The Trans New Guinea family". 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. 21–196. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.
- ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2019). "Glottolog". 4.0. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
- ^ Usher, Timothy and Edgar Suter. NewGuineaWorld.
- ^ Foley 1986.
- ^ Dixon, R. M. W. (2002). Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-47378-0.
- ^ a b Foley, William A. (2018). "The morphosyntactic typology of Papuan languages". 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. 895–938. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.
General references
[edit]- Carrington, Lois (1996). A linguistic bibliography of the New Guinea area. Canberra: Australian National University. ISBN 978-0-85883-449-1. OCLC 41223774.
- Foley, William A. (1986). The Papuan Languages of New Guinea. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-28621-2. OCLC 13004531.
- Pawley, Andrew; Robert Attenborough; Robin Hide; Jack Golson, eds. (2005). Papuan pasts: cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. ISBN 0-85883-562-2. OCLC 67292782.
- Ray, Sidney Herbert (1892). "The languages of British New Guinea". Transactions of the Ninth International Congress of Orientalists. II (1892): 754–770.
- Ross, Malcolm (2005). "Pronouns as a preliminary diagnostic for grouping Papuan languages". In Andrew Pawley; Robert Attenborough; Robin Hide; Jack Golson (eds.). Papuan pasts: cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. pp. 15–66. ISBN 0858835622. OCLC 67292782.
- Wurm, S.A. (Ed.) (1975). Wurm, Stephen A. (ed.). "Papuan languages and the New Guinea linguistic scene: New Guinea area languages and language study 1". C-38. Canberra: Dept. of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University. doi:10.15144/PL-C38. hdl:1885/145150. ISBN 9780858831322. OCLC 37096514.
- Wurm, Stephen A. (1982). The Papuan Languages of Oceania. Tübingen: Narr. ISBN 3-87808-357-2. OCLC 8592292.
- Wurm, Stephen A. (1983). "Papuan linguistics: past and future". Language and Linguistics in Melanesia. 14: 5–25. OCLC 9188672.
Further reading
[edit]- Comparative wordlists
- Conrad, R. and Dye, W. "Some Language Relationships in the Upper Sepik Region of Papua New Guinea". In Conrad, R., Dye, W., Thomson, N. and Bruce Jr., L. editors, Papers in New Guinea Linguistics No. 18. A-40:1-36. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1975. doi:10.15144/PL-A40.1
- Davies, J. and Comrie, B. "A linguistic survey of the Upper Yuat". In Adams, K., Lauck, L., Miedema, J., Welling, F., Stokhof, W., Flassy, D., Oguri, H., Collier, K., Gregerson, K., Phinnemore, T., Scorza, D., Davies, J., Comrie, B. and Abbott, S. editors, Papers in New Guinea Linguistics No. 22. A-63:275-312. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1985. doi:10.15144/PL-A63.275
- Dutton, T.E. "Notes on the Languages of the Rigo Area of the Central District of Papua". In Wurm, S.A. and Laycock, D.C. editors, Pacific linguistic studies in honour of Arthur Capell. C-13:879-984. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1970. doi:10.15144/PL-C13.879
- Foley, W.A. "Linguistic prehistory in the Sepik-Ramu basin". In Pawley, A., Attenborough, R., Golson, J. and Hide, R. editors, Papuan Pasts: Cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples. PL-572:109-144. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 2005.
- Franklin, K.J. "Other Language Groups in the Gulf District and Adjacent Areas". In Franklin, K. editor, The linguistic situation in the Gulf District and adjacent areas, Papua New Guinea. C-26:261-278. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1973. doi:10.15144/PL-C26.261
- Laycock, Donald C. 1968. Languages of the Lumi Subdistrict (West Sepik District), New Guinea. Oceanic Linguistics, 7 (1): 36–66.
- Macdonald, G.E. "The Teberan Language Family". In Franklin, K. editor, The linguistic situation in the Gulf District and adjacent areas, Papua New Guinea. C-26:111-148. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1973. doi:10.15144/PL-C26.111
- McElhanon, K.A. and Voorhoeve, C.L. The Trans-New Guinea Phylum: Explorations in deep-level genetic relationships. B-16, vi + 112 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1970. doi:10.15144/PL-B16
- Miedema, J. and Welling, F.I. "Fieldnotes on languages and dialects in the Kebar district, Bird's Head, Irian Jaya". In Adams, K., Lauck, L., Miedema, J., Welling, F., Stokhof, W., Flassy, D., Oguri, H., Collier, K., Gregerson, K., Phinnemore, T., Scorza, D., Davies, J., Comrie, B. and Abbott, S. editors, Papers in New Guinea Linguistics No. 22. A-63:29-52. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1985. doi:10.15144/PL-A63.29
- Shaw, R.D. "The Bosavi language family". In Laycock, D., Seiler, W., Bruce, L., Chlenov, M., Shaw, R.D., Holzknecht, S., Scott, G., Nekitel, O., Wurm, S.A., Goldman, L. and Fingleton, J. editors, Papers in New Guinea Linguistics No. 24. A-70:45-76. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1986. doi:10.15144/PL-A70.45
- Shaw, R.D. "A Tentative Classification of the Languages of the Mt Bosavi Region". In Franklin, K. editor, The linguistic situation in the Gulf District and adjacent areas, Papua New Guinea. C-26:187-215. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1973. doi:10.15144/PL-C26.187
- Thomson, N.P. "The Dialects of Magi". In Conrad, R., Dye, W., Thomson, N. and Bruce Jr., L. editors, Papers in New Guinea Linguistics No. 18. A-40:37-90. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1975. doi:10.15144/PL-A40.37
- Voorhoeve, C.L. Languages of Irian Jaya: Checklist. Preliminary classification, language maps, wordlists. B-31, iv + 133 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1975. doi:10.15144/PL-B31
- Voorhoeve, C.L. "Miscellaneous Notes on Languages in West Irian, New Guinea". In Dutton, T., Voorhoeve, C. and Wurm, S.A. editors, Papers in New Guinea Linguistics No. 14. A-28:47-114. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1971. doi:10.15144/PL-A28.47
External links
[edit]- TransNewGuinea.org - database of the languages of New Guinea (by Simon Greenhill)
- 2003 bibliography of languages (Papuan and Austronesian) of Indonesian Papua
- Summer Institute of Linguistics site on languages (Papuan and Austronesian) of Papua New Guinea
- Map of Papuan languages (formerly known as the East Papuan family) of island Melanesia
- Bill Foley on Papuan languages
- Dryer's Papuan Language Families and Genera
- Endangered Languages of the Pacific Region
- Timothy Usher's Newguineaworld site