Kwalean languages

Kwalean
Geographic
distribution:
Southeastern peninsula of New Guinea
Linguistic classification:

Trans–New Guinea

  • Kwalean
Glottolog: kwal1257[1]

The Kwalean languages are a small family of Trans–New Guinea languages spoken in the "Bird's Tail" (southeastern peninsula) of New Guinea. They are sometimes included in a speculative Southeast Papuan branch of TransNew Guinea (TNG), but the Southeast Papuan families have not been shown to be any more closely related to each other than they are to other TNG families.

The languages are HumeneUare (Kwale), Mulaha (extinct).

Humene and Uare are quite close (70% basic vocabulary), Mulaha more distant (22% with Uare).

Pronouns are as follows:

sgpl
1 ?
2 *ɣa, *a*ya, *-ya
3 *ani, *e

References

  1. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Kwalean". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.


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