The Tama languages are a small

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 three clusters of closely related languages 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 ...

, spoken just to the south of

Nuku Nuku was a traditional province of the island of Hiva Oa in pre-European times. It did not function as a unified governmental unit, but rather as a confederation of local tribes during times of war with tribes from Hiva Oa's other province, Pepan ...

town in eastern

Sandaun Province Sandaun Province (formerly West Sepik Province) is the northwesternmost mainland Provinces of Papua New Guinea, 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 capita ...

. They are classified as subgroup 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 ha ...

. ''Tama'' is the word for 'man' in the languages that make up this group. Yessan-Mayo and Mehek are the best documented Tama languages.

Languages

Usher (2020) classifies the Tama languages as follows,Tama
New Guinea World ;Tama *Pasi–Yamano: Ayi,

Pasi Pasi may refer to: * Pasi (caste), a Hindu caste of northern India * ''Pasi'' (film), a 1979 Tamil film * Pasi (given name) * Pasi (surname), a surname of the Pasi community * Pasi, Papua New Guinea, a settlement near the coast of Sandaun Provinc ...

, Yamano (Yessan-Mayo) *Mehek–Pahi: Pahi, Mehek * Wogamus: Wogamusin, Chenapian Foley (2018), following

Donald Laycock Donald Laycock (1936–1988) was an Australian linguist and anthropologist. He is best remembered for his work on the languages of Papua New Guinea. Biography He was a graduate of University of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia and later ...

, provides the following classification. ;Tama * Kalou * Ayi * Pahi, Mehek ( Makru) *

, Yessan-Mayo ( Yamano) Kalou is actually related to Amal.Amal–Kalou
New Guinea World

Phonology

The Tama languages distinguish /r/ and /l/, unlike many other Papuan languages that have only one

liquid consonant In phonetics, liquids are a class of consonants consisting of voiced lateral approximants like together with rhotics like . Etymology The grammarian Dionysius Thrax used the Ancient Greek word (, ) to describe the sonorant consonants () of cl ...

Vocabulary comparison

The following basic vocabulary words are from Laycock (1968), as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database: :

References

* {{Sepik languages Middle Sepik languages