Molof (Ampas, Poule, Powle-Ma) is a poorly documented
Papuan language
The Papuan languages are the non-Austronesian and non- Australian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, as well as neighbouring islands, by around 4 million people. It is a strictly geogra ...
spoken by about 200 people in
Molof village,
Senggi District
Senggi District is a district in Keerom Regency, Papua, Indonesia.
Villages
As of 2018, Senggi consists of 7 administrative villages (''kampung'').Badan Pusat Statistik Kabupaten KeeromKecamatan Senggi Dalam Angka 2018 The indigenous Papuan la ...
,
Keerom Regency
Keerom Regency is one of the regencies (''kabupaten'') in the Papua Province of Indonesia. It was formed from the eastern districts then within Jayapura Regency with effect from 12 November 2002. It covers an area of 9,365 km2, and had a popu ...
.
Classification
Wurm
The Wurm (; nl, Worm ) is a river in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in western Germany. It rises in the Eifel mountains and flows for 57 kilometres before discharging into the Rur.
Geography
The Wurm is a left (western) tributary of the ...
(1975) placed it as an independent branch of
Trans–New Guinea, but
Ross Ross or ROSS may refer to:
People
* Clan Ross, a Highland Scottish clan
* Ross (name), including a list of people with the surname or given name Ross, as well as the meaning
* Earl of Ross, a peerage of Scotland
Places
* RoSS, the Republic of Sout ...
(2005) could not find enough evidence to classify it.
Søren Wichmann
Søren Wichmann (born 1964) is a Danish linguist specializing in historical linguistics, linguistic typology, Mesoamerican languages, and epigraphy. Since June 2016, he has been employed as a University Lecturer at Leiden University Centre for Li ...
(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
Language isolates are languages that cannot be classified into larger language families. Korean and Basque are two of the most common examples. Other language isolates include Ainu in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, and Haida in North America. The nu ...
, as does Foley (2018).
Usher (2020) tentatively suggests it may be a
Pauwasi language
The Pauwasi languages are a likely family of Papuan languages, mostly in Indonesia. The subfamilies are at best only distantly related. The best described Pauwasi language is Karkar, across the border in Papua New Guinea. They are spoken around ...
.
[New Guinea World]
/ref>
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