The Kwalean or Humene–Uare languages are a small family of
Trans–New Guinea languages spoken in the "
Bird's Tail" (southeastern peninsula) of New Guinea. They are classified within the
Southeast Papuan branch of Trans–New Guinea.
The Kwalean languages are spoken in
Rigo District
Rigo District is a district of Central Province in Papua New Guinea. It is one of the four administrative districts that make up the province.
Local-level government areas
* Rigo Central Rural
* Rigo Coastal Rural
* Rigo Inland Rural
Town ...
,
Central Province,
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...
.
Languages
The languages are
Humene,
Uare (Kwale) and recently extinct
Mulaha. It is not clear if Mulaha was an outlier, or as close to the others as they are to each other.
Classification
Humene and Uare are quite close (70% basic vocabulary), Mulaha more distant (22% with Uare).
The Kwalean family is not accepted by
Søren Wichmann
Søren Wichmann (born 1964) is a Danish linguist specializing in historical linguistics, linguistic typology, Mesoamerican languages, and epigraphy. Since June 2016, he has been employed as a University Lecturer at Leiden University Centre for Li ...
(2013), who splits it into two separate groups, namely
Humene–
Uare and
Mulaha.
[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.
Proto-language
Phonemes
Usher (2020) reconstructs the consonant inventory of Humene and Uare as follows:
[New Guinea World, Humene–Uare]
/ref>
:
The *k is rare.
Vowels are *i *e *ɛ *a *ɔ *o *u.
Pronouns
Usher (2020) reconstructs the pronouns of Humene–Uare as:[
:
]
Basic vocabulary
Some lexical reconstructions by Usher (2020) are:[
:
]
Vocabulary comparison
The following basic vocabulary words are from Dutton (1970) (with additional data for Uare from 1988 SIL field notes), as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database.
Evolution
Kwale reflexes of proto-Trans-New Guinea (pTNG) etyma are:
References
Further reading
* Ross, Malcolm. 2014
Proto-Kwalean
''TransNewGuinea.org''.
External links
* Timothy Usher, New Guinea World
Owen Stanley Range
* (ibid.
Proto–Humene–Uare
{{Papuan languages
Owen Stanley Range languages
Languages of Central Province (Papua New Guinea)