The Leonhard Schultze (Leonard Schultze) or Walio–Papi languages are a proposed

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

of about 6

Papuan languages The Papuan languages are the non- Austronesian and non- Australian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, as well as neighbouring islands, by around 4 million people. It is a strictly geogr ...

spoken in the

Sepik The Sepik () is the longest river on the island of New Guinea, and the second largest in Oceania by discharge volume after the Fly River. The majority of the river flows through the Papua New Guinea (PNG) provinces of Sandaun (formerly West Se ...

river basin of northern

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 ...

. They are spoken along the border region of

East Sepik Province East Sepik is a province in Papua New Guinea. Its capital is Wewak. East Sepik has an estimated population of 433,481 people (2010 census) and is 43,426 km square in size. History Cherubim Dambui was appointed as East Sepik's first premier b ...

and

Sandaun Province Sandaun Province (formerly West Sepik Province) is the northwesternmost mainland province of Papua New Guinea. It covers an area of 35,920 km2 (13868 m2) and has a population of 248,411 (2011 census). The capital is Vanimo. In July 1998 the a ...

, just to the south of the

Iwam languages The Iwam languages are a small family of two clearly related languages, : May River Iwam and Sepik Iwam. They are generally classified among the Sepik languages of northern Papua New Guinea; Malcolm Ross places them in an Upper Sepik branch of ...

. The languages are named after the Leonhard Schultze River, which is in turn named after German anthropologist

Leonhard Schultze-Jena Leonhard Schultze-Jena (full name: Leonhard Sigmund Friedrich Kuno Klaus Schultze-Jena; born May 28, 1872 in Jena; died March 28, 1955 in Marburg) was a German explorer, zoologist, and anthropologist known for his explorations of German Southwe ...

Languages

The Leonard Schultze languages are: *

Walio languages The Walio languages are a small family of clearly related languages, : Walio, Pei, Yawiyo, and Tuwari. However, they are not close: Walio and Yawiyo have only a 12% lexical similarity. They are frequently classified among the Sepik languages ...

: Walio,

Pei PEI or Pei may refer to: Places *Matecaña International Airport, Pereira, Colombia, IATA code PEI *Pei County (沛县), Jiangsu, China *Pei Commandery (沛郡), a commandery in Chinese history *Prince Edward Island, a province of Canada *Pei, T ...

, Yawiyo, and Tuwari * Papi–Asaba languages: Papi and Suarmin

Classification

The Leonhard Schultze languages were traditionally classified by Laycock and Z'graggen (1975) as part of the

language family. Foley (2018) classifies the Leonhard Schultze languages separately as an independent language family rather than as part of the

Sepik languages The Sepik or Sepik River 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 ...

(as in previous classifications proposed by others). However, this classification is not accepted by Glottolog, which splits up the Walio and Papi branches and considers them each to be a primary language family.

Vocabulary comparison

The following basic vocabulary words are from Conrad and Dye (1975), as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database: :

References

{{language families Sepik languages Languages of Momase Region