Foja Range languages

Language family of New Guinea
Foja Range
(Tor–Kwerba)
Geographic
distribution
New Guinea
Linguistic classificationNorthwest Papuan?
  • Foja Range
Subdivisions
GlottologNone

The Foja Range languages, or Tor–Kwerba in more limited scope, are a family of about two dozen Papuan languages. They are named after the Foja Mountains of western New Guinea.

Languages

All the languages had been part of Stephen Wurm's 1975 Trans–New Guinea proposal, but he did not recognize them as a unit, retaining Kwerba within Capell's 1962 Dani–Kwerba proposal, for example. Foley (2018) classifies the Orya–Tor and Kwerbic languages together, as Tor–Kwerba.[1] Usher (2020) adds Nimboran and Mawes, naming the expanded family Foja Range, after the Foja mountain range[2] that passes through all four branches of the family.[3]

Typological overview

Even though grammatical gender is present in Tor-Kwerba languages, there is no overt gender marking on nouns.[1]

Pronouns

Reconstructed proto-Tor-Kwerba independent pronouns are:[1]

Proto-Tor-Kwerba independent pronouns
sg pl
1 *ati ~ *ait *ne(n)
2 *ame *ame

Cognates

Reconstructed proto-Tor-Kwerba words that are widely distributed throughout the family (Foley 2018):[1]

  • *nukwe 'eye'
  • *tVn 'leg'
  • *nen 'louse'
  • *uŋis 'sky'
  • *ti ~ *it 'tree'

References

  1. ^ a b c d Foley, William A. (2018). "The languages of Northwest New Guinea". In Palmer, Bill (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide. The World of Linguistics. Vol. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 433–568. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.
  2. ^ "Foja" is the Dutch spelling, often rendered "Foya" in English, so one might expect that in modern Indonesian orthography it would be "Foya" as well. However, the Indonesian spelling remains "Foja", as it was before the spelling reform. Thus the "j" may be pronounced as either an English "y" or an English "j".
  3. ^ "New Guinea World". Archived from the original on 2020-10-16. Retrieved 2020-01-27.
  • Ross, Malcolm (2005). "Pronouns as a preliminary diagnostic for grouping Papuan languages". In Andrew Pawley; Robert Attenborough; Robin Hide; Jack Golson (eds.). Papuan pasts: cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. pp. 15–66. ISBN 0858835622. OCLC 67292782.

External links

  • Tor-Kwerba languages database at TransNewGuinea.org
  • v
  • t
  • e
Papuan language families
(Palmer 2018 classification)
Trans-New Guinea
subgroups
Central Papua, Indonesia
Southeast Papua, Indonesia
Southwest Papua New Guinea
Central Papua New Guinea
Papuan Peninsula
Eastern Nusantara
families and isolatesBird's Head Peninsula
families and isolatesNorthern Western New Guinea
families and isolatesCentral Western New Guinea
families and isolatesSepik-Ramu basin
families and isolates
Torricelli subgroups
Sepik subgroups
Ramu subgroups
Gulf of Papua and southern New Guinea
families and isolatesBismarck Archipelago and Solomon Islands
families and isolatesRossel Island
isolateProposed groupingsProto-language
  • v
  • t
  • e
Africa
Isolates
Eurasia
(Europe
and Asia)
Isolates
New Guinea
and the Pacific
Isolates
Australia
Isolates
North
America
Isolates
Mesoamerica
Isolates
South
America
Isolates
(extant in 2000)
Sign
languages
Isolates
See also
  • Families with question marks (?) are disputed or controversial.
  • Families in italics have no living members.
  • Families with more than 30 languages are in bold.