Senu River languages
{{Short description|Language family of Papua New Guinea}}
{{for|the hypothetical language family also called Kwomtari|Kwomtari–Fas languages}}
{{Infobox language family
|name=Senu River
|altname=
|region=Senu River region, Papua New Guinea
|familycolor=Papuan
|family=One of the world's primary language families
|child3=Busa
|glotto2=kwom1263
|glottoname2=Kwomtari–Nai
|glotto=none
|map=Kwomtari-Fas languages.png
|mapcaption=The neighboring Kwomtari–Nai and Fas language families
}}
The Senu River languages are a small language family spoken in the Senu River watershed of Papua New Guinea.
They consist at least of the Kwomtari languages, Kwomtari and Nai, with several additional languages more distantly related to them.
Classification
The family consists of at least the two relatively closely related languages Kwomtari and Nai.
=Baron (1983)=
Baron adds the highly divergent language Guriaso:
Guriaso shares a small number of cognates with Kwomtari–Nai. Baron (1983) considers the evidence to be convincing when a correspondence between {{IPA|/ɾ~l/}} and {{IPA|/n/}} (from {{IPA|*ɾ}}) is established:
| class=" wikitable" | ||
| Gloss | Guriaso | Kwomtari |
|---|---|---|
| Verb suffixes (1pl, 2pl, 3pl) | -nɔ, -mɛ, -no || -ɾe, -mo, -ɾe* | ||
| dog
| map || mau | ||
| ear
| mətɛnu || futɛne | ||
| crocodile
| mɔməni || maməle | ||
| small
| tɔkəno || tɔkweɾo | ||
| nose
| apədu || tipu** |
=Usher (2020)=
=Confusion from Laycock=
There has been confusion over the membership of the Kwomtari family, apparently due to a misalignment in the publication (Loving & Bass 1964) of the data used for the initial classification. (See Baron 1983.) Because of this, Laycock classified the Kwomtari languages as part of a spurious Kwomtari–Fas family, which confusingly was also often called "Kwomtari" in the literature. However, Baron sees no evidence that the similarities are due to relationship. Usher likewise discounts the inclusion of the Fas languages. See Kwomtari–Fas languages for details.
References
{{Reflist}}
{{refbegin}}
- {{cite journal | last = Baron | first = Wietze | year = 1983 | title = Kwomtari survey |url=http://www.kwomtari.net/kwomtari_survey.pdf}}
- {{cite book | first = Donald C. | last = Laycock | author-link = Donald Laycock | year = 1975 | chapter = Sko, Kwomtari, and Left May (Arai) phyla | editor = Stephen A. Wurm | editor-link = Stephen Wurm | title = Papuan languages and the New Guinea linguistic scene: New Guinea area languages and language study 1 | location = Canberra | publisher = Dept. of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University | pages = 849–858 | oclc = 37096514 }}
- {{cite book | last = Loving | first = Richard |author2=Jack Bass | year = 1964 | title = Languages of the Amanab sub-district | location = Port Moresby | publisher = Department of Information and Extension Services | oclc = 17101737 }}
{{refend}}
External links
- [http://transnewguinea.org/family/kwomtari Kwomtari languages database at TransNewGuinea.org]
- [http://www.kwomtari.net Wietze Baron, The Kwomtari Phylum] (accessed 2011-4-15)
{{Papuan languages}}
{{language families}}