Papuan languages
The term Papuan languages means languages of the western Pacific which are neither Austronesian nor Australian. That is, the term is defined negatively and does not mean a linguistic relationship.
The languages
The majority of the Papuan languages are spoken on the island of New Guinea (which is divided between the country of Papua New Guinea and Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Irian Jaya), with a number spoken in the Bismarck Archipelago, Bougainville Island, and the Solomon Islands to the east, and in Halmahera, Timor, and the Alor archipelago to the west. One Papuan language, Meriam Mir, is spoken within the national borders of Australia, in the eastern Torres Strait. The only Papuan languages with official recognition are those of East Timor.
New Guinea is perhaps the most linguistically diverse region in the world. Besides the Austronesian languages, there are some 800 languages divided into perhaps sixty small language families, with unclear relationships to each other or to anything else, plus a large number of language isolates.
Papuan Languages Media
The historical distribution of the Papuan languages, in red. Tan is Austronesian and grey the historical range of Australian languages.
Language families of New Guinea, the North Moluccas, and the Lesser Sunda Islands according to Timothy Usher. Languages of Bougainville, the Solomon Islands, the Torres Strait Islands, and Northern Australia were not included in the study, and they are portrayed here according to current consensus.
References
- Papuan pasts : cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples. Canberra, ACT, Australia: Pacific Linguistics. 2005. ISBN 0-85883-562-2. OCLC 67292782.
Other websites
- 2003 bibliography of languages (Papuan and Austronesian) of Indonesian Papua Archived 2016-04-22 at the Wayback Machine
- Summer Institute of Linguistics site on languages (Papuan and Austronesian) of Papua New Guinea Archived 2010-07-07 at the Wayback Machine
- Map of Papuan languages (formerly known as the East Papuan family) of island Melanesia Archived 2006-05-17 at the Wayback Machine
- Bill Foley on Papuan languages Archived 2010-04-07 at the Wayback Machine
- Dryer's Papuan Language Families and Genera
