Sepik-Ramu languages
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
The Sepik-Ramu languages are a hypothetical language phylum consisting of about one hundred languages of the Sepik and Ramu river basins of northern Papua New Guinea. The linguist who proposed the Sepik-Ramu hypothesis, Stephen Würm, developed it as part of a first attempt to classify the Papuan languages on often scanty data, and he does not expect it to stand up well to scrutiny. Many of the features used to identify the Sepik-Ramu languages as a family, such as characteristic personal pronouns, may turn out to be areal features. The Papuan languages have, for example, shown themselves to be adept at borrowing pronouns.
The inclusion of the Gapun language and Leonhard Schultze (= Walio-Papi) family is especially tentative, as is the validity of the Sepik and Ramu languages themselves as families within Sepik-Ramu.
Subdivisions
- ? Gapun (1 language, Taiap, 80 speakers)
- ? Leonhard Schultze languages (6 languages)
- Walio (4 languages, 700 speakers)
- Papi (2 languages, 200 speakers)
- Nor-Pondo languages (6 languages)
- Nor (2 languages, 1200 speakers)
- Pondo (4 languages, 12 000 speakers)
- Ramu languages ? (37 languages)
- Ramu proper (28 languages)
- Yuat-Langam (9 languages)
- Sepik languages ? (50 languages)
- Biksi (2 languages)
- Upper Sepik (6 languages)
- Ram (2 languages)
- Awtuw (1 language)
- Tama (6 languages)
- Yellow River (3 languages)
- Middle Sepik (16 languages, uncluding Ndu languages such as Iatmul)
- Sepik Hill (14 languages)
