North Papuan Languages
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The Northwest Papuan languages are a proposed
language family A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term ''family'' is a metaphor borrowed from biology, with the tree model used in historical linguistics ...
of
Papuan languages 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 ...
. Many of the constituent branches of Northwest Papuan were first proposed to be related by H.K.J. Cowan in the 1950s. Voorhoeve (1971) connected the Border and Tor families. Using only pronouns as a diagnostic, Malcolm Ross linked most of the western (Foja Range) branch of the family, which is now fairly secure. The current form of the proposal was worked out by Timothy Usher under the name "North(west) New Guinea"Northwest New Guinea
/ref> (not to be confused with the proposed North New Guinea branch of the Austronesian language family). It is not yet certain, however, that the similarities in vocabulary between Foja Range and the other constituent families are due to inheritance rather than borrowing.


Languages

* Fas * Sentani * Border (Upper Tami) * Sko * Foja Range **
Nimboran Nimboran (Nambrong, Namblong, Namlong) is a Papuan language of Nimboran District, Jayapura Regency, Indonesia spoken by mostly older adults. Younger generations have shifted to Papuan Malay Papuan Malay or Irian Malay is a Malay-based creole, ...
** Kwerbic **'' Mawes'' ** Orya–Tor The western branch, Foja Range, is equivalent to Ross's Tor–Kwerba family with the addition of Nimboran.
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 L ...
(2013)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.
considers
Nimboran Nimboran (Nambrong, Namblong, Namlong) is a Papuan language of Nimboran District, Jayapura Regency, Indonesia spoken by mostly older adults. Younger generations have shifted to Papuan Malay Papuan Malay or Irian Malay is a Malay-based creole, ...
, Kapauri (under Kwerbic above),
Border Borders are generally defined as geography, geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by polity, political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other administrative divisio ...
, and possibly also Elseng (under Border above) to form a unified language family.


References

{{language families Languages of Papua New Guinea Languages of Western New Guinea Proposed language families Papuan languages