Molof (Ampas, Poule, Powle-Ma) is a poorly documented
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 ...
spoken by about 200 people in
Molof village,
Senggi District,
Keerom Regency.
[
]
Classification
Wurm (1975) placed it as an independent branch of Trans–New Guinea, but Ross (2005) could not find enough evidence to classify it. Søren Wichmann (2018)[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. tentatively considers it to be a language isolate
A language isolate is a language that has no demonstrable genetic relationship with any other languages. Basque in Europe, Ainu and Burushaski in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, Haida and Zuni in North America, Kanoê in South America, and Tiwi ...
, as does Foley (2018).[New Guinea World]
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Phonology
Molof has a small consonant inventory, but a large one for vowels.
Molof consonants, quoted by Foley (2018) from Donohue (n.d.):
Basic vocabulary
Basic vocabulary of Molof from Rumaropen (2005), quoted in Foley (2018):
References
External links
Molof word list at TransNewGuinea.org
{{Papuan languages
Languages of Western New Guinea
Unclassified languages of New Guinea
Pauwasi languages