The Demta–Sentani languages form a
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 coastal Indonesian Papua near the Papua New Guinea border.
Languages
*Demta–Sentani
**
Demta
**Sentani proper
***
Sentani
***
Nafri
***
Tabla
A tabla, bn, তবলা, prs, طبلا, gu, તબલા, hi, तबला, kn, ತಬಲಾ, ml, തബല, mr, तबला, ne, तबला, or, ତବଲା, ps, طبله, pa, ਤਬਲਾ, ta, தபலா, te, తబల� ...
(Tanah Merah)
The term 'Sentani' is ambiguous. It may be used in a wider sense, including Demta, in a narrow sense (Sentani proper) excluding Demta – either as an unrelated language family or as a branch of Demta–Sentani – or for the Sentani language itself. Usher distinguishes these three scopes as 'Demta – Sentani Lake', '
Sentani Lake' and 'Sentani'.
Classification
Demta–Sentani was a branch of
Stephen Wurm
Stephen Adolphe Wurm ( hu, Wurm István Adolf, ; 19 August 1922 – 24 October 2001) was a Hungarian-born Australian linguist.
Early life
Wurm was born in Budapest, the second child to the German-speaking Adolphe Wurm and the Hungarian-sp ...
's proposal for
Trans–New Guinea. The languages have lexical similarities with the
Asmat–Kamoro languages, though later linguists have not accepted the resemblances as indicative of a genealogical relationship. Pawley and Hammarström (2018) list the following resemblances between the Sentani languages and
proto-Trans-New Guinea, though they classify Sentani as a separate language family rather than as part of Trans-New Guinea.
*C. Sentani ''an''- ‘eat’ < *na-
*C. Sentani ''mikæ'' ‘vomit’ (n.) < *mVkV
*C. Sentani ''mu'' ‘penis’ < *mo
*W. Sentani, Tabla ''oto'' ‘leg’ < *k(a,o)ndok
*Tabla ''miŋ'', C. Sentani ''mi'' ‘louse’ < *iman
*C. Sentani ''mi''- ‘come’ < *me-
Ross (2005) does not believe these demonstrate a genealogical relationship, and proposes instead that the Demta–Sentani languages are related to the
East Bird's Head languages
East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from the f ...
, in a tentative
East Bird's Head – Sentani family.
Foley (2018) classifies them as an independent language family.
Usher (2020) tentatively includes them in a proposed
Northwest Papuan family, though as of 2020 it's not clear whether the resemblances are due to inheritance or borrowing.
The connection between Demta and the Sentani languages is not supported by
Søren Wichmann (2013)'s automated comparison.
[Wichmann, Søren. 2013]
A classification of Papuan languages
. In: Hammarström, Harald and Wilco van den Heuvel (eds.), History, contact and classification of Papuan languages (Language and Linguistics in Melanesia, Special Issue 2012), 313-386. Port Moresby: Linguistic Society of Papua New Guinea.
Pronouns
The pronouns Ross reconstructs for proto-family are:
:
Comparative pronouns in Sentani languages:
:
Vocabulary comparison
The following basic vocabulary words are from McElhanon & Voorhoeve (1970) (for
Sentani) and Voorhoeve (1975), as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:
:
See also
*
Papuan languages
*
Districts of Papua
The province of Papua (''Provinsi Papua'') in Indonesia is divided into eight ''kabupaten'' ( regencies) and one independent ''kota'' (city) which in turn are divided administratively into districts, known as ''distrik'' under the law of 2001 on ...
for a list of districts and villages with respective languages
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Demta-Sentani languages
Languages of Indonesia
Northwest Papuan languages
Language families