Mantion–Meax languages

The Mantion–Meax or (South)East Bird's Head languages are a language family of three languages in the "Bird's Head Peninsula" of western New Guinea, spoken altogether by 20,000 people.

Mantion–Meax
East Bird's Head
Geographic
distribution		Papua
Linguistic classificationWest Papuan?
  • (extended) East Bird's Head
    • Mantion–Meax
Subdivisions
  • Mantion
  • Meax
Glottologeast1459[1]
East Bird's Head languages (in red)

Classification

East Bird's Head stock (3 languages)

  • Mantion (Manikion, Sougb)
  • Meax family: Meax (Meyah), Meninggo (Moskona)

Pronouns

The pronouns Ross reconstructs for the proto-language (Usher's Southeast Bird's Head) are:

Number
PersonSingularPlural
exclusiveinclusive
1st *da, *di-*meme, *me-*mimi, *mi-
2nd *ba, *bi-*ia, *i-
3rd *e, *-*rua, *ri-

Basic vocabulary

Lexical similarities among East Bird's Head languages (Meyah, Moskona, Sougb, Hatam, Mansim) listed in Holton & Klamer (2018):[2]

East Bird's Head family basic vocabulary
glossMeyahMoskonaSougbHatamMansim
‘bird’memmembahabwaw
‘louse’mejmejmemmem
‘one’egensergeshomgomwom
‘night’motumotlobammun
‘I’didifdifdandanidanu

Additional East Bird's Head basic vocabulary quoted by Holton & Klamer (2018)[2] from Miedema & Reesink (2004: 34) and (Reesink 2005: 202), showing diverse non-cognate vocabulary across different branches:[3][4]

Additional East Bird's Head basic vocabulary
glossMeyahMoskonaSougbHatam
arm/handetmaetmas(i)randab
leg/footakiegak/okoohoramig
housemodmodtuig
goodoufaojfaeigouhkei
dogmesmesmihinsien
pigmekmekhwejnab
chickenmongkukarmemkoarberougbguri
lousemejmejmemmem
water/rivermeimijuhunyei
bananameninejwida

See also

References
  1. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "East Bird's Head". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  2. Holton, Gary; Klamer, Marian (2018). "The Papuan languages of East Nusantara and the Bird's Head". 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. 569–640. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.
  3. Miedema, Jelle and Ger P. Reesink. 2004. One Head, Many Faces: New perspectives on the Bird’s Head Peninsula of New Guinea. Leiden: KITLV.
  4. Reesink, Ger P. 2005. West Papuan languages: roots and development. In: Pawley et al. (eds.) 185–218.

Further reading
  • Reesink, Ger P. (2002). "The Eastern Bird's Head Languages Compared". In Ger P. Reesink (ed.). Languages of the Eastern Bird's Head. Pacific Linguistics. 524. Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University. pp. 1–44. hdl:1885/146144.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.