The Paniai Lakes languages, also known as the Wissel Lakes or Wissel Lakes – Kemandoga River, are a small family of closely related

Trans–New Guinea languages Trans–New Guinea (TNG) is an extensive Language family, family of Papuan languages spoken on the island of New Guinea and neighboring islands ‒ corresponding to the country Papua New Guinea as well as Western New Guinea, parts of Indonesia. ...

spoken in the Paniai Lakes region of the highlands of

Western New Guinea Western New Guinea, also known as Papua, Indonesian New Guinea, or Indonesian Papua, is the western half of the Melanesian island of New Guinea which is administered by Indonesia. Since the island is alternatively named as Papua, the region ...

in the Paniai Lakes region of Papua. Foley (2003) considers their Trans–New Guinea status to be established.

Languages

The languages are:NewGuineaWorld
/ref> * Moni *Central ** Wolani (Wodani) ** Ekari (Ekari) ** Auye (incl. Dao) They are most closely related to the

Dani languages The Dani or Baliem Valley languages are a family of clearly related Trans–New Guinea languages spoken by the Dani and related peoples in the Baliem Valley in the highlands of Papua Province, Indonesia. Foley (2003) considers their TNG status ...

, Amung and Dem.

Pronouns

Independent pronouns and possessive prefixes are: :

Vocabulary comparison

The following basic vocabulary words are from Larson & Larson (1972) and Voorhoeve (1975), as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database: :

Evolution

Paniai Lakes reflexes of proto-Trans-New Guinea (pTNG) etyma are: Ekari language: * ‘breast’ < * ‘arm’ < * ‘belly’ < * ‘breast’ < * ‘skin’ < * ‘louse’ < * ‘come’ < * ‘father’ < * ‘speech, talk’ < ‘instructions’ * ‘sun’ <

Moni language Moni, as given by Ekari people, or Migani/Megani, as given by locals, also known as ''Djonggunu'', ''Jonggunu'', is a Papuan language spoken by about 20,000 people (1991) in the Paniai lakes region of the Indonesian province of Central Papua Cen ...

: * ‘breast’ < * ‘heart’ < ‘internal organs, belly’ * ‘skin’ < * ‘woman’ < * ‘night’ < * ‘stone’ < * ‘tree’ < * ‘come’ <

References

{{Papuan languages Languages of western New Guinea West Papuan Highlands languages