The Yam languages, also known as the Morehead River 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 ...

Papuan 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. It is a strictly geographical grouping, and does not imply ...

. They include many of the languages south and west of the

Fly River The Fly River is the third longest river on the island of New Guinea, after the Sepik and Mamberamo, with a total length of . It is the largest by volume of discharge in Oceania, the largest in the world without a single dam in its catchment, an ...

in Papua New Guinea and Indonesian

Western New Guinea Western New Guinea, also known as Papua, Indonesian New Guinea, and Indonesian Papua, is the western half of the island of New Guinea, formerly Dutch and granted to Indonesia in 1962. Given the island is alternatively named Papua, the region ...

(

South Papua South Papua, officially the South Papua Province (), is an Indonesian Provinces of Indonesia, province located in the southern portion of Western New Guinea, Papua, following the borders of the Papuan customary region of Anim Ha. Formally establ ...

Name

The name ''Morehead and Upper Maro River'', or ''Morehead–Maro'', refers to the area around the Morehead and Maro rivers. Most of the languages are found between these rivers, but the Nambu subgroup are spoken east of the Morehead. Evans (2012) refers to the family instead with the more compact name ''Yam''. This name is motivated by a number of linguistic and cultural items of significance: ''yam'' (and cognates) means "custom, tradition"; ''yəm'' (and cognates) means "is"; and yam tubers are the local staple and of central cultural importance.

External relationships

Ross (2005) tentatively includes the Yam languages in the proposed Trans-Fly – Bulaka River family. More recently (Evans 2012) has argued that this is not justified and more data has to be gathered. Evans (2018) classifies the Pahoturi River languages as an independent language family. Yam languages have also been in intensive contact with Marind and Suki speakers, who had historically expanded into Yam-speaking territories via headhunting raids and other expansionary migrations.

Classification

Internal classification of the Yam languages: * Yei *

Tonda languages The Tonda languages form a branch of the Yam languages, Yam language family of southern New Guinea. There are over 10 languages. Tonda languages share some areal features are shared with the Kolopom languages. Languages The Tonda languages are: ...

(a dialect chain) * Nambu languages (a dialect chain) Wichmann (2013) did not find a connection between the branches in his automated comparison.Wichmann, Søren. 2013
A classification of Papuan languages
In: Hammarström, Harald and Wilco van den Heuvel (eds.), History, contact and classification of Papuan languages (Language and Linguistics in Melanesia, Special Issue 2012), 313-386. Port Moresby: Linguistic Society of Papua New Guinea.

Languages

Yam languages are spoken by up to 3,000 people on both sides of the border in Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. In

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 ...

, Yam languages are spoken in

Morehead Rural LLG Morehead Rural LLG is a local-level government (LLG) of Western Province, Papua New Guinea. Merauke Regency, Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, ...

, Western Province. In Papua,

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

, Yam languages are spoken in

Merauke Regency Merauke Regency is a Regencies of Indonesia, regency in the far south of the Indonesian province of South Papua. It covers an area of 45,013.35 km2, and had a population of 195,716 at the 2010 CensusBiro Pusat Statistik, Jakarta, 2011. and 2 ...

. Yam languages and respective demographic information listed by Evans (2018) are provided below. Geographical coordinates are also provided for some villages. : See also: Districts of Papua ( Indonesian Wikipedia)

Pronouns

The pronouns Ross (2005) reconstructs for the family are, ;Proto-Yam (Proto–Morehead – Upper Maro) :

Typology

Many Yam languages display

vowel harmony In phonology, vowel harmony is a phonological rule in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – must share certain distinctive features (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is typically long distance, meaning tha ...

, including in Nambu and

Vocabulary comparison

The following basic vocabulary words are from McElhanon & Voorhoeve (1970) and Voorhoeve (1975), as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database. The words cited constitute translation equivalents, whether they are cognate (e.g. ''tor'', ''ter'' for “tooth”) or not (e.g. ''sento'', ''yarmaker'' for “bird”). :

References

* *

External links

YamfinderMorehead languages documentation project
(DOBES) * Timothy Usher, New Guinea World
East Morehead River
(under construction 2020) * (ibid.
West Morehead River
(under construction 2020) {{language families Language families Papuan languages Languages of Western Province (Papua New Guinea)