Huon Gulf languages
Western Oceanic languages
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The Huon Gulf languages are Western Oceanic languages spoken primarily in Morobe Province of Papua New Guinea. They may form a group of the North New Guinea languages, perhaps within the Ngero–Vitiaz branch of that family.[citation needed]
distributionPapua New Guinea
| Huon Gulf | |
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution | Papua New Guinea |
| Linguistic classification | Austronesian |
| Proto-language | Proto-Huon Gulf |
| Subdivisions | |
| Language codes | |
| Glottolog | huon1245 |
Unusually for Oceanic languages, two North Huon Gulf languages, Bukawa and Yabem, are tonal. The only other tonal Oceanic languages are found in New Caledonia.[1]
Classification
According to Lynch, Ross, & Crowley (2002), the structure of the family is as follows:[2]
- North Huon Gulf linkage
- Markham family
- South Huon Gulf linkage
- Numbami
Proto-language
| Proto-Huon Gulf | |
|---|---|
| Reconstruction of | Huon Gulf languages |
Reconstructed ancestors | |
| Lower-order reconstructions | |
Proto-Huon Gulf was reconstructed by Malcolm Ross in 1988 in Proto-Oceanic and the Austronesian Languages of Western Melanesia. It is reconstructed on the basis of shared phonological, morphosyntactic and lexicosemantic innovations relative to Proto-Oceanic, such as the pervasive lenition of Proto-Oceanic *p to *v, the acquisition of a final *-c in some words, the idiosyncratic change of Proto-Oceanic *boRok 'pig' to Proto-Huon Gulf *boR, and the loss of all verb-deriving prefixes such as *pa- 'causative', *paRi- 'reciprocal', *ma- 'stative', and *ta- 'intransitive'.
Vowels
The vowels of Proto-Huon Gulf, according to Ross, are:
Consonants
The consonants of Proto-Huon Gulf, according to Ross, are: