The Mairasi languages are a small independent 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 Papuan languages

Papuan languages

The Papuan languages are those languages of the western Pacific which are neither Austronesian nor Australian. The term does not presuppose a genetic relationship. The concept of Papuan peoples as distinct from Melanesians was first suggested and named by Sidney Herbert Ray in 1892.-The...

 in the classification of 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:**...

, that had been part of 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 Trans–New Guinea proposal.

Classification

• Mairasi family: Semimi
  Semimi language
  Semimi, or Etna Bay, is a Papuan language spoken in Papua province of Indonesia....
  
  , Mer
  Mer language
  Mer is a Papuan language spoken in Papua province of Indonesia.-External links:*...
  
  , Mairasi
  Mairasi language
  Mairasi is a Papuan language of the Bomberai Peninsula of Papua, Indonesia.The Northeastern dialect may be a distinct language....
  
  , Northeastern Mairasi

Mairasi cannot be linked to other families by its pronouns. However, Voorhoeve (1975) links in to the Tanah Merah language

Tanah Merah language

Tanah Merah is a Trans–New Guinea language that forms an independent branch of that family in the classification of Malcolm Ross . It is spoken on the Bomberai Peninsula by perhaps a thousand people....

 in the Trans–New Guinea family, and further research is needed.

Pronouns

The pronouns Ross reconstructs for proto-Mairasi are,

I	*omo	we	*etumaka (inclusive), *eme (exclusive)
thou	*nemi	you	*keme
s/he	?	they	*negi