The Tirio languages are a
family
Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...
of
Trans–New Guinea languages
Trans–New Guinea (TNG) is an extensive Language family, family of Papuan languages spoken on the island of New Guinea and neighboring islands, a region corresponding to the country Papua New Guinea as well as Western New Guinea, parts of Indone ...
in the classification of
Malcolm Ross. The Tirio languages have about 40% of their lexicon in common.
Languages
*
Baramu
*
Bitur (Mutum)
*
Tirio (Makayam, Aturu)
*
Were
''Were'' and ''wer'' are archaism, archaic terms for adult male humans and were often used for alliteration with wife as "were and wife" in Germanic-speaking cultures (, , , , , , ).
In Anglo-Saxon law ''wer'' was the value of a man's life. He ...
(Kiunum)
Evans (2018) lists the Tirio languages as:
*
Tirio (Makayam)
*
Bitur (Paswam, Mutum)
*Lewada-Dewara, spoken on Dewala village on Sumogi Island
*Adulu (Aturu), also spoken on Sumogi Island
Baramu is somewhat more divergent in vocabulary, but this may reflect language contact rather than divergence in its position within the family. Pronouns are only available for Tirio itself (Makayam).
The moribund language
Abom was once classified as a divergent Tirio language, sharing only an eighth of its lexicon with the others, but it turns out to not belong to the family at all, nor to the Anim family that Tirio is a branch of.
A survey of the Tirio languages can be found in Jore and Alemán (2002).
[Jore, Tim and Laura Alemán. 2002. ''Sociolinguistic survey of the Tirio language family''. Manuscript. Ukarumpa: SIL-PNG.]
Phonemes
Usher (2020) reconstructs the consonant inventory as follows:
[New Guinea World, Lower Fly River]
/ref>
:
Vowels are *a *e *i *o *u.
Pronouns
The pronouns are:[
:
]
Evolution
Lower Fly River (Makayam and Baramu) reflexes of proto-Trans-New Guinea (pTNG) etyma:
References
*
External links
* Timothy Usher, New Guinea World
Proto–Lower Fly River
{{Languages of Papua New Guinea
Languages of Papua New Guinea
Anim languages