The Codification of Native Papuan Languages in The West Papua Province: Identification and Classification of Native Papuan Languages

Abstract

This article aims to describe the codification of the language of indigenous Papuans in the province of West Papua. Starting from the idea that the extinction of a language causes the loss of various forms of cultural heritage, especially traditional heritage and spoken expressions of the speaking community. Native Papuan are native speakers of regional languages in West Papua Province who come from the Melanesian race family who have their own culture, history, customs and language. Regional languages in Indonesia have a very large number, but in their management, there are differences in language data on the validity of the number of regional languages in the archipelago. The findings in this article illustrate that the languages of West Papua Province can be grouped into four language groups, namely (1) Austronesian phylum groups; (2) West Papua phylum group; (3) Papuan Bird Head phylum group; and (4) the Trans West Papua Phylum Group. The codification of language in West Papua is based on: (1) the ecological typology of language (phylum), (2) the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) data base, and (3) the database of the Indonesian Language Development and Development Agency