Suvarna Garge (Editor)

Massep language

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Region
  
Papua New Guinea

Native speakers
  
30% or less (2000)

Glottolog
  
mass1263

Ethnicity
  
85 (2000)

ISO 639-3
  
mvs

Language family
  
unclassified (possible language isolate)

Massep (Masep, Potafa, Wotaf) is a poorly documented Papuan language spoken by under 50 people in a single village. Despite the small number of speakers, however, language use is vigorous. Donohue and colleagues (2002) conclude that it is definitely not a Kwerba language, as it had been classified by Wurm (1975), and they did not notice connections to any other language family. Ethnologue and Glottolog list it as a language isolate, but it has not been included in wider surveys such as Ross (2005). The pronouns are not dissimilar from those Trans–New Guinea languages, but Massep is geographically distant from that family.

References

Massep language Wikipedia