The Bulaka River languages are a pair of closely related
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 ...
,
Yelmek and
Maklew, on the
Bulaka River in Indonesian
West Papua. They are ethnically Yab (Jab); their speech is ''Yabga (Jabga)''.
Languages
Yelmek is spoken west of
Merauke
Merauke is a large town and the capital of the South Papua province, Indonesia. It is also the administrative centre of Merauke Regency in South Papua. It is considered the easternmost city in Indonesia. The town was originally called Ermasoe. It ...
, between the
Digul River
The Digul River () is a major river in southern Papua province, Indonesia, on the island of New Guinea. It is the fourth longest river in New Guinea after Sepik River, Mamberamo River and Fly River. With a total length of and has a drainage b ...
and
Mbian River, (from north to south) in the villages of Wanam, Bibikem, Woboyo, and Dodalim.
Maklew is spoken in Welbuti village.
The former two villages are located in
Ilwayab subdistrict, and the latter three in
Tubang subdistrict.
Classification
The two languages are transparently related.
Ross (2005) tentatively included them in the proposed
Trans-Fly – Bulaka River family, but Usher, who reconstructs that family, does not connect Bulaka River to any other language family.
[New Guinea World: Bulaka River]
/ref>
Proto-language
Phonology
Usher (2014) reconstructs the consonant inventory as follows.[
Although the modern inventories of Yelmek and Maklew are nearly identical, the lack of a one-to-one correspondence between them suggests the ancestral inventory was somewhat larger. Usher posits a series of palatal consonants *ɲ *c *ɟ to handle the correspondences of alveolar in Yelmek with velar in Maklew (n~ŋ, t~k, d~g), plus *j for j~s, *w for w~h, *ɣ̃ for ŋ~h, and *s for t~s (found in loans).
:
:
]
Pronouns
Usher (2020) reconstructs the pronouns as:[
:
]
Lexicon
Proto-Bulaka River lexical reconstructions by Usher (2014) are:[Usher, Timothy. 2014.]
Bulaka River Consonants
. '' Journal of Language Relationship'', vol. 12, no. 1, 2015, pp. 31-50.
:
References
External links
* Timothy Usher, New Guinea World
Proto-Bulaka River
{{language families
Language families
Papuan languages
Languages of western New Guinea