Uruangnirin is an

Austronesian language The Austronesian languages ( ) are a language family widely spoken throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Madagascar, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and Taiwan (by Taiwanese indigenous peoples). They are spoken b ...

spoken on the islands of Tarak and Faor in the Sebakor Bay, West Papua. Some Kalamang people from the neighboring island of Karas speak it as a

second language A second language (L2) is a language spoken in addition to one's first language (L1). A second language may be a neighbouring language, another language of the speaker's home country, or a foreign language. A speaker's dominant language, which ...

.Visser, Eline. (2016)
A grammar sketch of Kalamang with a focus on phonetics and phonology
Master's thesis, University of Oslo. The languages most closely related to Uruangnirin are Onin and Sekar of the

Bomberai Peninsula Bomberai Peninsula () is located in the Western New Guinea region. It is south of the Bird's Head Peninsula, and Bintuni Bay separates the two peninsulas. To the west lies the Sebakor Bay and to the south Kamrau Bay. On the southeast Arguni ...

. Uruangnirin is an

endangered language An endangered language or moribund language is a language that is at risk of disappearing as its speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages. Language loss occurs when the language has no more native speakers and becomes a " dead langua ...

as the younger generations of its speakers are shifting to

Papuan Malay Papuan Malay or Irian Malay is a Malay-based creole, Malay-based creole language spoken in the Papua (Indonesia), Indonesian part of New Guinea. It emerged as a contact language among tribes in Indonesian New Guinea (now Papua (Indonesian provin ...

, the local

lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, link language or language of wider communication (LWC), is a Natural language, language systematically used to make co ...

, as well as Indonesian, the standard national language.

References

Central Malayo-Polynesian languages Languages of Western New Guinea {{au-lang-stub