Not to be confused with West Trans–New Guinea languages.
West Papuan
(proposed)
Geographic distribution
Halmahera (North Maluku) and Bird's Head Peninsula (West Papua and Southwest Papua)
Linguistic classification
One of the world's primary language families
Subdivisions
Amberbaken (Mpur)
North Halmahera
Yawa
? East Bird's Head
West-Central Bird's Head
Glottolog
None
Distribution of the West Papuan languages
The West Papuan languages are a proposed language family of about two dozen non-Austronesian languages of the Bird's Head Peninsula (Vogelkop or Doberai Peninsula) of far western New Guinea, the island of Halmahera and its vicinity, spoken by about 220,000 people in all. It is not established if they constitute a proper linguistic family or an areal network of genetically unrelated families.
The best known "West Papuan" language is Ternate (50,000 native speakers) of the island of the same name, which is a regional lingua franca. Along with neighboring Tidore, they were the languages of the rival medieval Ternate and Tidore sultanates, famous for their role in the spice trade.
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Klamer, Marian (2018). "The Papuanlanguages of East Nusantara and the Bird's Head". In Palmer, Bill (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea...
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