Rahul Sharma (Editor)

Huon languages

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Geographicdistribution:
  
New Guinea

Glottolog:
  
huon1246

Subdivisions:
  
EasternWestern

Linguistic classification:
  
Trans–New GuineaFinisterre–HuonHuon

The Huon languages are a family within the original Trans–New Guinea (TNG) proposal, and William A. Foley considers their TNG identity to be established. They share with the Finisterre languages verbs which are suppletive depending on the person and number of the object, strong morphological evidence that they are related.

Internal structure

Huon and Finisterre, and then the connection between them, were identified by Kenneth McElhanon (1967, 1970). They are clearly valid language families. Huon contains two clear branches, Eastern and Western. The Western languages allow more consonants in syllable-final position (p, t, k, m, n, ŋ), while the Eastern languages have neutralized those distinctions to two, the glottal stop (written c) and the velar nasal (McElhanon 1974: 17). Beyond that, classification is based on lexicostatistics, which is generally unreliable.

  • Huon family
  • Eastern Huon branch
  • Kâte, Mape, Sene
  • Migabac, Momare
  • Tobo-Kube
  • Dedua
  • Kovai
  • Western Huon branch
  • Burum (Mindik), Borong (Kosorong)
  • Kinalakna, Kumokio
  • Mese, Nabak
  • Komba, SelepetTimbe
  • Nomu
  • Ono
  • Sialum
  • Kâte is the local lingua franca.

    References

    Huon languages Wikipedia


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