The Lower Sepik or Nor–Pondo languages are a small language family

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...

 of northern Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...

. They were identified as a family by K Laumann in 1951 under the name Nor–Pondo, and included in Donald Laycock

Donald Laycock

Dr Donald Laycock was an Australian linguist and anthropologist. He is best remembered for his work on the languages of Papua New Guinea.-Biography:...

's now-defunct 1973 Sepik–Ramu family. Malcolm Ross

Malcolm Ross

Malcolm David Ross is a linguist and professor at the Australian National University. He has published work on Austronesian and Papuan languages, historical linguistics, and language contact.-External links:**...

 (2005) broke up the Nor branch and thus renamed the family Lower Sepik; he classifies it as one branch of a Ramu – Lower Sepik language family.

Classification

Murik and Kopar are traditionally placed in a Nor family (thus the name Nor–Pondo). However, Murik does not share the /p/s characteristic of the first- and second-person pronouns of Kopar and the Pondo languages, so Ross (2005) breaks up Nor. Ethnologue

Ethnologue

Ethnologue: Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International , a Christian linguistic service organization, which studies lesser-known languages, to provide the speakers with Bibles in their native language and support their efforts in language development.The Ethnologue...

(2009) keeps Nor together but breaks up Pondo, retaining only Karawari–Yimas.

Pronouns

The pronouns reconstructed for the proto-language are,

Proto–Lower Sepik (Ross)

I	*ama	we two	*ka-i, *ka-pia	we few	*(p)a-ŋk-i-t	we all	*a-i, *a-pia, *i-pi
thou	*nɨmi	you two	*ka-u, *ka-pua	you few	*(p)a-ŋk-u-t	you all	*a-u, *a-pu, *i-pu(a)
s/he	*mɨn	they two	*mɨnɨmp ? (M), *mpɨ ? (F)	they few	*mɨŋkɨ-t	they all	*mump (M), *pum (F)

Proto–Lower Sepik (Foley)

we two	*ka-i, *ka-pa-i	we few	*(pa)ŋk-it	we all	*a-i, *a-pa-i, *(y)i-i, *(y)i-pa-i
you two	*ka-u, *ka-pa-u	you few	*(pa)ŋk-ut	you all	*a-u, *a-pa-u, *(y)i-u, *(y)i-pa-u
they two	?	they few	*mɨŋkɨ	they all	*mump ?