Lower Mamberamo languages
Encyclopedia
The Lower Mamberamo languages are a recently proposed language family
linking two languages spoken along the northern coast of Papua province, Indonesia, near the mouth of the Mamberamo River.
The two languages, Warembori
and Yoke
, were listed as isolates
in Stephen Wurm
's widely used classification. Donohue (1998) showed them to be related with shared morphological irregularities. Ross (2007) classified Warembori as an Austronesian language based on pronouns; however, Donohue argues that these are borrowed, since the two pronouns most resistant to borrowing, 'I' and 'thou', do not resemble Austronesian or any other language family. The singular prefixes resemble Kwerba languages, but Lower Mamberamo has nothing else in common with that family. (See Warembori language
and Yoke language
for details.) Donohue argues that they form an independent family, though one perhaps related to another Papuan family, that has been extensively relexified under Austronesian influence, especially in the case of Warembori.
Language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term 'family' comes from the tree model of language origination in historical linguistics, which makes use of a metaphor comparing languages to people in a...
linking two languages spoken along the northern coast of Papua province, Indonesia, near the mouth of the Mamberamo River.
The two languages, Warembori
Warembori language
Warembori is a moribund language spoken by about 600 people in river mouths on the north coast of Papua, Indonesia.-Classification:...
and Yoke
Yoke language
Yoke is a poorly documented language spoken by about 200 people in the north of Papua, Indonesia. The name is also spelled Yoki, Yauke, Jauke, and it is also known as Bitovondo. It was spoken in a single village in the interior until the government relocated a third of the population to a new...
, were listed as isolates
Language isolate
A language isolate, in the absolute sense, is a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical relationship with other languages; that is, one that has not been demonstrated to descend from an ancestor common with any other language. They are in effect language families consisting of a single...
in Stephen Wurm
Stephen Wurm
Stephen Adolphe Wurm was a Hungarian-born Australian linguist.- Biography :Wurm was born in Budapest, the second child to the German-speaking Adolphe Wurm and Hungarian-speaking Anna Novroczky, and was christened Istvan Adolphe Wurm...
's widely used classification. Donohue (1998) showed them to be related with shared morphological irregularities. Ross (2007) classified Warembori as an Austronesian language based on pronouns; however, Donohue argues that these are borrowed, since the two pronouns most resistant to borrowing, 'I' and 'thou', do not resemble Austronesian or any other language family. The singular prefixes resemble Kwerba languages, but Lower Mamberamo has nothing else in common with that family. (See Warembori language
Warembori language
Warembori is a moribund language spoken by about 600 people in river mouths on the north coast of Papua, Indonesia.-Classification:...
and Yoke language
Yoke language
Yoke is a poorly documented language spoken by about 200 people in the north of Papua, Indonesia. The name is also spelled Yoki, Yauke, Jauke, and it is also known as Bitovondo. It was spoken in a single village in the interior until the government relocated a third of the population to a new...
for details.) Donohue argues that they form an independent family, though one perhaps related to another Papuan family, that has been extensively relexified under Austronesian influence, especially in the case of Warembori.