The Orya–Tor languages are a
family
Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...
of just over a dozen
Papuan languages spoken in
Western New Guinea
Western New Guinea, also known as Papua, Indonesian New Guinea, or Indonesian Papua, is the western half of the Melanesian island of New Guinea which is administered by Indonesia. Since the island is alternatively named as Papua, the region ...
, Indonesia.
Classification
The Tor family, named after the
Tor River, is clearly established. Its closest relative appears to be
Orya.
Stephen Wurm (1975) linked Orya and the Tor languages with the
Lakes Plain languages
The Lakes Plain languages are a family of Papuan languages, spoken in the Lakes Plain of Indonesian New Guinea. They are notable for being heavily tonal and for their lack of nasal consonants.
Classification
The Lakes Plain languages were tenta ...
, forming a branch of his
Trans–New Guinea phylum. Clouse (1997) found no evidence of such a connection.
Malcolm Ross (2005) linked them instead with part of another erstwhile branch of TNG in a
Tor–Kwerba proposal, and Usher makes a broadly similar proposal. ''Glottolog'' accepts only the link with Orya as having been demonstrated.
Languages
Foley (2018)
Foley (2018) provides the following classification.
Foley considers the inclusion of
Sause within the Tor family to be questionable due to insufficient lexical evidence.
See
Kapauri–Sause languages
The Kapauri–Sause (Kapori–Sause) languages form a small language family spoken along the middle Taritatu River in the Jayapura Regency of Papua, Indonesia. They are two languages, Kapauri (Kapori) and Sause, which are not particularly c ...
.
Usher (2020)
Timothy Usher provides the following classification:
[
Jofotek and Mander are found to be the same language, whereas the ISO conflation of Edwas and Bonerif is found to be spurious.
A Wares language is not attested. (The Wares people are not known to have a distinct language, and the language of the village of Wares is Mawes.)][Reported also in Hammarström (2015) Ethnologue 16/17/18th editions: a comprehensive review: online appendices]
Proto-language
Phonemes
Usher (2020) reconstructs the consonant inventory tentatively as follows:[New Guinea World, Orya–Tor River]
/ref>
:
The stop *d is marginal and only occurs initially. *ɾ does not occur initially.
:
Pronouns
The pronouns Ross reconstructs for proto-Orya–Tor are,
:
Usher (2020) reconstructs the pronouns of the East Tor Coast branch as:[
:
]
Basic vocabulary
Some lexical reconstructions by Usher (2020) are:[
:
]
References
External links
* Timothy Usher, New Guinea World
Proto–Orya – Tor River
{{DEFAULTSORT:Orya-Tor languages
Foja Range languages