Karami is an extinct and unclassified

Papuan language The Papuan languages are the non-Austronesian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea, as well as neighbouring islands in Indonesia, Solomon Islands, and East Timor. It is a strictly geographical grouping, and does not imply a ...

of southern

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

. It is attested from only a short word list, which include many loans from Foia Foia.Usher, Timothy
Inland Gulf family
''New Guinea World''.

Geographical distribution

According to Flint (1919: 96), from which the only existing word list of Karami is available, Karami was spoken in the villages of Kikimairi and Aduahai, both located near

Daru Daru is the capital of the Western Province of Papua New Guinea and a former Catholic bishopric. Daru town falls under the jurisdiction of Daru Urban LLG. The township is entirely located on an island that goes by the same name, which is lo ...

Station, "on the right-hand side (in the bush) of left branch of the

Turama River The Turama River is a river of Papua New Guinea. Approximately 10 miles (16 km) wide at the mouth, with a total length of , it narrows rapidly. This, combined with its location at the head of the Gulf of Papua, results in tidal bore A tidal b ...

, Western Division, Papua."

Classification

Although Franklin (1968; 1973: 269-273) classifies Karami as an Inland Gulf language,Franklin, Karl J. 1973. Other language groups in the Gulf District and adjacent areas. In ''The linguistic situation in the Gulf District and adjacent areas, Papua New Guinea'', ed. by Karl J. Franklin, 263‒77. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Usher and Suter (2015: 125) do not consider it to be part of the

Anim languages The Anim or Fly River languages are a language family in south-central New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; , fossilized , also known as Papua or historically ) is the List of islands by area, world's second-largest island, w ...

, noting that there are many loanwords from Foia Foia.Timothy Usher and Edgar Suter (2015) "The Anim Languages of Southern New Guinea". ''Oceanic Linguistics'' 54:110–142 Pawley and Hammarström (2018) treat Karami as a 'language isolate', though this is the wording used for languages that are not easily classified.

Vocabulary

Below is the word list of Karami from Flint (1919), which was recorded on October 12, 1917.Flint, L. A. 1919. Vocabularies: Daru station, Western Division. Papua. ''Annual Report for the Year 1917‒18'', 96. The Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia. :

References

{{Papuan languages Unclassified languages of New Guinea Papuan languages Languages of Southern Region (Papua New Guinea) Extinct languages of Papua New Guinea