The Mombum languages, also known as the Komolom or Muli Strait languages, are a pair of
Trans–New Guinea languages
Trans–New Guinea (TNG) is an extensive family of Papuan languages spoken on the island of New Guinea and neighboring islands ‒ corresponding to the country Papua New Guinea as well as parts of Indonesia.
Trans–New Guinea is the third-lar ...
,
Mombum (Komolom) and
Koneraw, spoken on
Komolom Island
Komoran or Komolom is an island just south of the much larger Yos Sudarso near the south coast of New Guinea in South Papua
South Papua, officially the South Papua Province ( id, Provinsi Papua Selatan), is an Indonesian province located in the ...
just off
Yos Sudarso Island
Pulau Yos Sudarso or Pulau Dolok is an island separated only by the narrow Muli Strait from the main island of New Guinea. It is part of the Merauke Regency, in the Indonesian province of South Papua. The island is leaf-shaped, about long with an ...
, and on the southern coast of Yos Sudarso Island, respectively, on the southern coast of New Guinea. Komolom Island is at the southern end of the
Muli Strait
Muli Strait ( Malay: ''Selat Muli'', formerly ''Salat Moeli''), or Marianne Strait (colonial Dutch ''Straat Marianne''), named after Princess Marianne of the Netherlands, is a strait in the Indonesian province of South Papua that separates the i ...
.
[New Guinea World, Muli Strait]
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History of classification
Mombum was first classified as a branch isolate of the Central and South New Guinea languages
The Central and South New Guinea languages (CSNG) are a proposed family of Trans–New Guinea languages (TNG). They were part of Voorhoeve & McElhanon's original TNG proposal, but have been reduced in scope by half (nine families to four) in t ...
in 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- ...
's 1975 expansion for Trans–New Guinea, a position tentatively maintained by Malcolm Ross, though he cannot tell if the similarities are shared innovations or retentions from