The Sepik or Sepik River languages are a

family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...

of some 50 Papuan languages spoken in the Sepik river basin of northern

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

, proposed by Donald Laycock in 1965 in a somewhat more limited form than presented here. They tend to have simple phonologies, with few consonants or vowels and usually no tones. The best known Sepik language is Iatmül. The most populous are Iatmül's fellow Ndu languages

Abelam The Abelam are a people who live in East Sepik Province of Papua New Guinea. They are a farming society in which giant yams play a significant role. They live in the Prince Alexander Mountains near the north coast of the island. Their language b ...

and Boiken, with about 35,000 speakers each. The Sepik languages, like their

Ramu The Ramu River is a major river in northern Papua New Guinea. The headwaters of the river are formed in the Kratke Range from where it then travels about northwest to the Bismarck Sea. Along the Ramu's course, it receives numerous tributaries ...

neighbors, appear to have three-vowel systems, , that distinguish only

vowel height A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...

in a

vertical vowel system A vertical vowel system is the system of vowels in a language that requires only vowel height to phonemically distinguish vowels. Theoretically, rounding, frontness and backness could also be used in one-dimensional vowel systems; however, ''v ...

. Phonetic are a result of palatal and labial

assimilation Assimilation may refer to: Culture *Cultural assimilation, the process whereby a minority group gradually adapts to the customs and attitudes of the prevailing culture and customs **Language shift, also known as language assimilation, the progre ...

to adjacent consonants. It is suspected that the Ndu languages may reduce this to a two-vowel system, with epenthetic (Foley 1986).

Classification

The Sepik languages consist of two branches of Kandru's Laycock's Sepik–Ramu proposal, the Sepik subphylum and Leonhard Schultze stock. According to Malcolm Ross, the most promising external relationship is not with Ramu, ''pace'' Laycock, but with the Torricelli family. Palmer (2018) classifies the

Leonhard Schultze languages The Leonhard Schultze (Leonard Schultze) or Walio–Papi languages are a proposed family of about 6 Papuan languages spoken in the Sepik river basin of northern Papua New Guinea. They are spoken along the border region of East Sepik Province and ...

as an independent language phylum.

Usher (2020)

In the cladogram below, the small, closely related families in bold at the ends of the branches are covered in separate articles. Sepik_as_classified_by_William_A

Foley (2018)

Foley (2018) provides the following classification, with 6 main branches recognized. ;Sepik family * Middle Sepik languages ** Ndu languages **

Nukuma languages The Nukuma languages are a small family of three clearly related languages: * Kwoma *Kwanga–Mende ** Kwanga ** Seim They are generally classified among the Sepik languages of northern Papua New Guinea; Malcolm Ross places them in a Middle Se ...

** Yerakai (Garamambu) ** Yellow River languages *

Tama languages The Tama languages are a small family of three clusters of closely related languages of northern Papua New Guinea, spoken just to the south of Nuku town in eastern Sandaun Province. They are classified as subgroup of the Sepik languages. ''Tama' ...

Sepik Hill languages The Sepik Hill languages form the largest and most ramified branch of the Sepik languages of northern Papua New Guinea. They are spoken along the southern margin of the Sepik floodplain in the foothills of Central Range of south-central East Se ...

** Eastern (Alamblak) **

Central Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object. Central may also refer to: Directions and generalised locations * Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...

(Bahinemo) **Western: Saniyo-Hiyewe, Paka ( Setiali),

Gabiano Gabiano (Gabian in Piedmontese) is a rural ''comune'' in the northwest of the province of Alessandria, some west of Casale Monferrato. This area straddles the lowland immediately south of the Po and the furthest extension of the Monferrato hi ...

( Niksek), Piame, Bikaru, Umairof, Hewa * Ram languages *

Upper Sepik languages The Upper Sepik languages are a group of ten to a dozen languages generally classified among the Sepik languages of northern Papua New Guinea. Languages The Upper Sepik languages are:Wogamus languages The Wogamus languages are a pair of closely related languages, : Wogamusin and Chenapian. They are classified among the Sepik languages of northern Papua New Guinea; Malcolm Ross and William A. Foley (2018) place them in the Upper Sepik bra ...

Iwam languages The Iwam languages are a small family of two clearly related languages, : May River Iwam and Sepik Iwam. They are generally classified among the Sepik languages of northern Papua New Guinea; Malcolm Ross places them in an Upper Sepik branch of ...

Abau Abau is a Papuan language spoken in southern Sandaun Province of Papua New Guinea, primarily along the border with Indonesia. In 2002, there were estimated to be between 4,500 and 5,000 speakers, and this number does not appear to have declined s ...

Amal Amal may refer to: * Amal (given name) * Åmål, a small town in Sweden * Amal Movement, a Lebanese political party ** Amal Militia, Amal Movement's defunct militia * Amal language of Papua New Guinea * Amal (film), ''Amal'' (film), 2007, directed ...

Like the neighboring

Torricelli languages The Torricelli languages are a family of about fifty languages of the northern Papua New Guinea coast, spoken by about 80,000 people. They are named after the Torricelli Mountains. The most populous and best known Torricelli language is Arapesh, ...

, but unlike the rest of the Sepik languages, the Ram and Yellow River languages do not have clause chaining constructions (for an example of a clause chaining construction in a Trans-New Guinea language, see '' Kamano language#Clause chaining''). Foley (2018) suggests that many of the Ram and Yellow River-speaking peoples may have in fact been Torricelli speakers who were later assimilated by Sepik-speaking peoples. Foley classifies the

separately as an independent language family.

Pronouns

The pronouns Ross reconstructs for proto-Sepik are:Ross (2005) : Note the similarities of the dual and plural suffixes with those of the

. Ross reconstructs two sets of pronouns for "proto–Upper Sepik" (actually, Abau–Iwam and Wogamusin (Tama)). These are the default set (Set I), and a set with "certain interpersonal and pragmatic functions" (table 1.27): : : Most Sepik languages have reflexes of proto-Sepik *na ~ *an for 1sg, *no for 1pl, and *ni for 2sg.

Cognates

Proto-Sepik forms reconstructed by Foley (2018) that are widespread across the family: :

Typological overview

Even internally within Sepik subgroups, languages in the Sepik family can have vastly different typological profiles varying from isolating to

agglutinative In linguistics, agglutination is a morphological process in which words are formed by stringing together morphemes, each of which corresponds to a single syntactic feature. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglutinative langu ...

, with example languages listed below. : In contrast, languages within the

, Lower Sepik, and Yuat families all have relatively uniform typological profiles.

Gender

Like the isolate Taiap, but unlike the

Lower Sepik-Ramu Lower may refer to: *Lower (surname) *Lower Township, New Jersey *Lower Receiver (firearms) *Lower Wick Lower Wick is a small hamlet located in the county of Gloucestershire, England. It is situated about five miles south west of Dursley, eight ...

, Yuat, and Upper Yuat families, Sepik languages distinguish masculine and feminine

gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures u ...

s, with the feminine gender being the more common default unmarked gender. Proto-Sepik gender-marking suffixes are reconstructed by Foley (2018) as: : In Sepik languages, gender-marking suffixes are not always attached to the head noun, and can also be affixed to other roots in the phrase. Typically, the genders of lower animals and inanimate objects are determined according to shape and size: big or long objects are typically classified as masculine (as a result of phallic imagery), while small or short objects are typically classified as feminine. In some languages, objects can be classified as either masculine or feminine, depending on the physical characteristics intended for emphasis. To illustrate, below is an example in

, an Upper Sepik language: *''youk se'' ‘paddle ’ focuses on the ''length'' of the paddle *''youk ke'' ‘paddle ’ focuses on the ''flat nature'' of the two-dimensional paddle blade Except for the Middle Sepik languages, most Sepik languages overtly mark nouns using gender suffixes.

References

* * * * * * *

External links

Sepik languages database at TransNewGuinea.org
{{language families Language families Languages of Momase Region Papuan languages Vertical vowel systems