Non-Austronesian languages of New Guinea and adjacent islands
The historical distribution of the Papuan languages, in red. Tan is Austronesian and grey the historical range of Australian 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 by around 4 million people.[1] It is a strictly geographical grouping, and does not imply a genetic relationship.
New Guinea is the most linguistically diverse region in the world. Besides the Austronesian languages, there arguably are some 800 languages divided into perhaps sixty small language families, with unclear relationships to each other or to any other languages, plus many language isolates. The majority of the Papuan languages are spoken on the island of New Guinea, with a number spoken in the Bismarck Archipelago, Bougainville Island and the Solomon Islands to the east, and in Halmahera, Timor and the Alor archipelago to the west. The westernmost language, Tambora in Sumbawa, is extinct. One Papuan language, Meriam, is spoken within the national borders of Australia, in the eastern Torres Strait.
Several languages of Flores, Sumba, and other islands of eastern Indonesia are classified as Austronesian but have large numbers of non-Austronesian words in their basic vocabulary and non-Austronesian grammatical features. It has been suggested that these may have originally been non-Austronesian languages that have borrowed nearly all of their vocabulary from neighboring Austronesian languages, but no connection with the Papuan languages of Timor has been found. In general, the Central–Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages are marked by a significant historical Papuan influence, lexically, grammatically, and phonologically, and this is responsible for much of the diversity of the Austronesian language family.
The Papuanlanguages are the non-Austronesian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea, as well as neighbouring islands in Indonesia...
The Papuan Tip languages are a branch of the Western Oceanic languages consisting of 60 languages. All Papuan Tip languages, except Nimoa, Sudest, and...
The West Papuanlanguages are a proposed language family of about two dozen non-Austronesian languages of the Bird's Head Peninsula (Vogelkop or Doberai...
Papuanized Austronesian languages of New Britain do as well. This suggests a pre-Austronesian language area in the region. The East Papuanlanguages were...
Papuan languages that are also spoken include the languages of Indonesia, East Timor, and the Solomon Islands. Below is a full list of Papuanlanguage families...
The Northwest Papuanlanguages are a proposed language family of Papuanlanguages. Many of the constituent branches of Northwest Papuan were first proposed...
Papuan Gulf languages are a proposed language family of Papuanlanguages spoken inland from the large gulf that defines the shape of southern Papua New...
Austronesian languages along parts of the coast, and recently developed creoles such as Tok Pisin, Hiri Motu, Unserdeutsch, and Papuan Malay. The term "Papuan" is...
The Lakes Plain languages are a family of Papuanlanguages, spoken in the Lakes Plain of Indonesian New Guinea. They are notable for being heavily tonal...
Austronesian languages. The Central Solomon languages such as Bilua, Lavukaleve, Savosavo and Touo constitute an independent family within the Papuanlanguages. Two...
East Cenderawasih languages are a language family of a dozen Papuanlanguages along the eastern coast of Geelvink Bay in Indonesian Papua, which is also...
The Foja Range languages, or Tor–Kwerba in more limited scope, are a family of about two dozen Papuanlanguages. They are named after the Foja Mountains...
The Southeast Papuan or Papuan Peninsula ("Bird's Tail") languages are a group of half a dozen small families of Papuanlanguages in the "Bird's Tail"...
coordinates) The Yam languages, also known as the Morehead River languages, are a family of Papuanlanguages. They include many of the languages south and west...
The Yawa languages, also known as Yapen languages, are a small family of two closely related Papuanlanguages, Yawa (or Yava) and Saweru, which are often...
The Senagi languages are a small family of Papuanlanguages in the classification of Malcolm Ross, that had been part of Stephen Wurm's Trans–New Guinea...
Papuanlanguages and some of languages spoken in Sulawesi, such as Buginese and Cia-Cia. Roughly around 60 out of 200 attested words in this language...
been classified either as heavily Papuanized Austronesian languages belonging to the SHWNG branch, or as Papuanlanguages that had undergone heavy Austronesian...
Sumuri or Sumeri (one of two Papuanlanguages also known as Tanah Merah) is a language spoken in Sumuri District, Teluk Bintuni Regency on the Bomberai...
Papuan, but note that the more restricted "West Papuan" proposal, linking NH with West Bird's Head in particular (and also the Yapen/Yawa languages)...
The Pauwasi languages are a likely family of Papuanlanguages, mostly in Indonesia. The subfamilies are at best only distantly related. The best described...
preliminary diagnostic for grouping Papuanlanguages". In Andrew Pawley; Robert Attenborough; Robin Hide; Jack Golson (eds.). Papuan pasts: cultural, linguistic...
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