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The East Papuan languages form a hypothetical and seemingly spurious family of Papuan languages spoken on the islands to the east of New Guinea, including New Britain, New Ireland, Bougainville, the Solomon Islands, and the Santa Cruz Islands. All but two of the starred languages below (Yélî Dnye and Sulka) make a gender distinction in their pronouns. Several of the heavily Papuanized Austronesian languages of New Britain do as well. This suggests a pre-Austronesian language area in the region.
History of the proposal The East Papuan languages were identified as a phylum by linguist Stephen Wurm and others. However, their work was preliminary, and there is little evidence the East Papuan languages actually have a genealogical relationship. For example, none of the fifteen languages marked with asterisks below share more than 2-3% of their basic vocabulary with any of the others ('basic vocabulary' being words for basic things like fire, water, eye, or louse that are not likely to be borrowed from neighboring languages). Dunn et al. (2005) tested the reliability of the proposed 2-3% cognates by randomizing the vocabulary lists and comparing them again. The nonsense comparisons produced the same 2-3% of "shared" vocabulary, demonstrating that the proposed cognates of the East Papuan languages, and even of proposed families within the East Papuan languages, are as likely to be due to chance as to any genealogical relationship. Thus in a conservative classification, many of the East Papuan languages would be considered language isolates. Given that the islands in question have been settled for at least 35 000 years, it's not surprising that they show considerable linguistic diversity. However, Malcolm Ross (2005) has presented evidence from comparing pronouns from nineteen of these languages that several of the lower-level branches of East Papuan may indeed be valid families. This is the classification adopted here. For Wurm's more inclusive classification, see the Ethnologue entry here. Small families Each of the first five entries in boldface is an independent language family, unrelated to the others. The first is a more tentative proposal than the others and awaits confirmation. Not considered by Ross or Dunn was the sixth, the extinct Kazakuru family. These languages were clearly related to each other, but it is unknown how they might otherwise fit into this classification. However, Wurm placed them at a taxonomic level comparable to the independent families listed here. Reconstructed pronoun sets for each of the families are given in the individual articles. ? Yele-West New Britain family tentative Baining (East New Britain) family: Mali North Bougainville family — Bougainville South Bougainville family — Bougainville Central Solomons family Kazakuru family extinct: Dororo, Guliguli, Kazukuru — New Georgia True language isolates These three languages are not thought to be demonstrably related to each other or to any language in the world. If the Yele-West New Britain family is not confirmed, the region may contain six isolates rather than three. Sulka isolate Kol isolate Kuot (Panaras) isolate Other languages Three languages of the Santa Cruz and Reef Islands may form an additional family. However, their pronouns suggest that they may be divergent Austronesian languages. If they are Papuan, they show no connection to any of the families listed above and are heavily mixed with Austronesian elements. Archeological evidence suggests that they migrated to their current location with Austronesian speakers, rather than being a remnant indigenous family. See also | ||||||||
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