Kwalean languages

The Kwalean or Humene–Uare languages are a small family of Trans–New Guinea languages spoken in the "Bird's Tail" (southeastern peninsula) of New Guinea. They are classified within the Southeast Papuan branch of Trans–New Guinea.

Kwalean
Humene–Uare
Geographic
distribution		Southeastern peninsula of Papua New Guinea: Central Province
Linguistic classificationTrans–New Guinea
  • Papuan Peninsula
    • Owen Stanley Range[1]
      • Kwalean
Glottologkwal1257[2]

The Kwalean languages are spoken in Rigo District, Central Province, Papua New Guinea.[3]

Languages

The languages are Humene, Uare (Kwale) and recently extinct Mulaha. It is not clear if Mulaha was an outlier, or as close to the others as they are to each other.

Classification

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

The Kwalean family is not accepted by Søren Wichmann (2013), who splits it into two separate groups, namely Humene–Uare and Mulaha.[4]

Phonemes

Usher (2020) reconstructs the consonant inventory of Humene and Uare as follows:[5]

*m*n
*t*k*ʔ
*b*d*g
*ɸ*h
*w*ɾ*j*ɣ

The *k is rare.

Vowels are *i *e *ɛ *a *ɔ *o *u.

Pronouns

Usher (2020) reconstructs the pronouns of Humene–Uare as:[5]

sgpl
1 *ɛ*ɛmɛ
2 *ɣa*ja
3 *ani*jɛ

Evolution

Kwale reflexes of proto-Trans-New Guinea (pTNG) etyma are:[6]

  • maɣa ‘egg’ < *maŋgV
  • oda ‘leg’ < *k(a,o)ndok[V]
  • nomone ‘louse’ < *niman
  • ire ‘tree’ < *inda

References
  1. New Guinea World, Owen Stanley Range
  2. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Kwalean". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  3. Eberhard, David M.; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D., eds. (2019). "Papua New Guinea languages". Ethnologue: Languages of the World (22nd ed.). Dallas: SIL International.
  4. Wichmann, Søren. 2013. A classification of Papuan languages. In: Hammarström, Harald and Wilco van den Heuvel (eds.), History, contact and classification of Papuan languages (Language and Linguistics in Melanesia, Special Issue 2012), 313-386. Port Moresby: Linguistic Society of Papua New Guinea.
  5. New Guinea World, Humene–Uare
  6. Pawley, Andrew; Hammarström, Harald (2018). "The Trans New Guinea family". In Palmer, Bill (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide. The World of Linguistics. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 21–196. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.

Further reading
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