The Sepik Hill languages form the largest and most ramified branch 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 ...
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 southern margin of 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 ...
floodplain in the
foothills
Foothills or piedmont are geographically defined as gradual increases in elevation at the base of a mountain range, higher hill range or an upland area. They are a transition zone between plains and low relief hills and the adjacent topogr ...
of
Central Range of south-central
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 ...
.
Languages
The languages according to Usher (2020) are,
;Sepik Hills
*
Saniyo-Hiyewe
*Southwest Sepik Hills:
Niksek (Paka, Gabiano),
Piame,
Hewa
The Hewa are an indigenous people that live in the Koroba Lake Kopiago Electorate of Hela Province of Papua New Guinea near the junction of the Strickland River. They were one of the last peoples in Papua New Guinea to come into contact with th ...
*
Bahinemo–Berinomo
*
East Sepik Hills (Alamblak etc.)
The languages according to Foley (2018) are:
;Sepik Hill
*
Eastern
Eastern may refer to:
Transportation
*China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai
*Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways
*Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991
*Eastern Air Li ...
(Alamblak etc.)
*
Central (Bahinemo etc.)
*Western:
Saniyo-Hiyewe,
Paka (
Setiali),
Gabiano (
Niksek),
Piame,
Bikaru,
Umairof,
Hewa
The Hewa are an indigenous people that live in the Koroba Lake Kopiago Electorate of Hela Province of Papua New Guinea near the junction of the Strickland River. They were one of the last peoples in Papua New Guinea to come into contact with th ...
Other than disagreement at to what is a language or a dialect (''Glottolog'', for example, concludes that the 'Bikaru' language is probably spurious, and doesn't list Umairof at all), the only difference from Usher is in combining Sanio with the Southwest Sepik Hills languages as a Western branch.
Pronouns
Pronouns in Sepik Hill languages:
:
Vocabulary comparison
The following basic vocabulary words are from Davies & Comrie (1985), Dye et al. (1968), Foley (2005), Macdonald (1973), and various SIL field notes, as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:
:
References
*
{{Sepik languages
Sepik languages