A LARGE PAPUAN LANGUAGE PHYLUM IN WEST NEW GUINEA

Abstract

a recent article1 1 have shown or at least made probable that there is a distant genetic relationship between a group of Papuan (non-Austronesian) languages in the Vogelkop peninsula of Netherlands New Guinea and the equally non-Austronesian languages of North Halmahera in East Indonesia. This conclusion was arrived at largely with the help of Morris Swadesh's methods of testing and proving relationships used by him in Amerindian comparative linguistics. These methods are based on the probability calculus specially adapted for the purpose in a formula for calculating the chances of coincidence in a number of corresponding words of, preferably, consonant-vowel-consonant (C.V.C.) complexity in the languages to be compared, found in a test list of 97 non-cultural words.2 The Vogelkop languages compared in my paper just mentioned are Moi, Kalabra, Moraid, Madik, Karon and Ajamara. Not included were a number of other languages in that area, described in my : Voorlopige Resultaten van een Ambtelijk Taalonderzoek in Nieuw-Guinea,3 because they were too divergent and would only complicate the main purpose of the comparison. It is the object of the present paper to try and show with the help of Swadesh's test that these languages or at least most of them are, nevertheless, related to the others and thus constitute, together with these, a large group of Vogelkop languages related to North Halmaheran. The languages in question are those of Amberbaken, Mansibaber, Mantion, Ronda, Jahadian, Kampong Bara and Puragi. They are spoken to the east and south-east of the others and can be divided in a northern, and eastern and a southern group. The northern group is represented by Amberbaken alone, the eastern group consists of Mansibaber and Mantion, and the southern group includes the remaining four. The latter can be subdivided in two pairs : Konda/ Jahadian and Kp. Bara/ Puragi. As against these groups Moi, Kalabra, Moraid, Madik and Karon form a western group and Ajamaru alone a central, which has, however, special connections with the western group. Grammatically these languages are, with the exception of Mansibaber, practically as unknown as the western group. Mansibaber has a prefixal conjugation