The Left May or Arai languages are a small

language family A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in hist ...

of half a dozen closely related but not mutually intelligible languages in the centre of

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of Port Moresby (Capital of Papua New Guinea). It is a simplified version of ...

, in the watershed of the

Left May River The Left May or Arai River is a river in northern Papua New Guinea. Left May Riverin Geonames.org (cc-by) post updated 2011-07-09; database downloaded 2015-06-22 See also *List of rivers of Papua New Guinea *Left May languages The Left May or ...

. There are only about 2,000 speakers in all. Foley (2018) classifies them separately as an independent language family, while Usher (2020) links them with the

Amto–Musan languages Amto–Musan is a language family of two closely related but mutually unintelligible Papuan languages, Amto and Siawi, spoken along the Samaia River of Sandaun Province of Papua New Guinea. Languages Foley (2018) and Usher (2020) agree that t ...

.NewGuineaWorld, Arai and Samaia Rivers
/ref> The Left May languages are spoken at the extreme western end of East Sepik Province,

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 ...

. Ama is the best documented Left May language.

Languages

The languages are: : Iteri (Rocky Peak), Nakwi, Ama, Nimo, Owiniga, and (possibly) Bo.

Classification

Foley (2018) provides the following classification. ;Left May family *western branch: Ama; Nimo; Iteri, Bo *eastern branch: Owiniga Iteri and Bo are closely related to each other. Usher (2020) does not recognize a primary western branch, and distinguishes more languages. ; Arai River family * Ama *Nimo–Nakwi ** Nakwi ** Nimo * Owiniga *West Arai River ** Bo **Iteri – Rocky Peak *** Iteri *** Rocky Peak

External relationships

Malcolm Ross (2005) linked the Left May languages to Laycock's Kwomtari–Baibai languages in a Left May – Kwomtari family, based on similarities in the

pronoun In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not co ...

s of Rocky Peak. However, he had not corrected for Laycock's errors in classification, and it is not clear if the links are with the Kwomtari or Fas languages. Timothy Usher links the Left May languages to their neighbors, the

and the Pyu language in as Arai–Samaia stock. However, Foley (2018) attributes lexical similarities between the Left May and Amto-Musan families to contact, rather than genetic relationship. Foley (2018) notes that typologically, the Left May languages are highly different from the other language families of the Sepik-

Ramu The Ramu River is a major river in northern Papua New Guinea. The headwaters of the river are formed in the Kratke Range from where it then travels about northwest to the Bismarck Sea. Along the Ramu's course, it receives numerous tributaries ...

basin, instead resembling the Trans-New Guinea somewhat more closely. For example, Left May and Trans-New Guinea languages typically all have

ergative case In grammar, the ergative case (abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that identifies the noun as the agent of a transitive verb in ergative–absolutive languages. Characteristics In such languages, the ergative case is typically marked (most ...

markers, which most languages of the Sepik-Ramu basin do not have except for a few such as the isolate Taiap. Nevertheless, Left May and Trans-New Guinea speakers have historically been hostile towards each other (unlike their close trade relationships with Amto-Musan speakers), so there has been no recent contact scenarios to speak of. These typological similarities could be due to chance, ancient contact, or perhaps even a deep genetic relationship.

Vocabulary comparison

The following basic vocabulary words are from Conrad & Dye (1975) and various

SIL SIL, Sil and sil may refer to: Organizations * Servis Industries Limited, Pakistan * Smithsonian Institution Libraries * SIL International, formerly Summer Institute of Linguistics * Apex Silver Mines (former American Stock Exchange ticker symb ...

resources, as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database: :

References

* * *

External links

Left May (Arai) languages database at TransNewGuinea.org
{{language families Arai–Samaia languages Languages of Momase Region