Geographic
distribution: New Guinea | Glottolog: lowe1423 | |
 | ||
Linguistic classification: Ramu–Lower Sepik
Nor–Pondo Subdivisions: Nor
Pondo
?Angoram
?Chambri | ||
The Nor–Pondo a.k.a. Lower Sepik languages are a small language family of northern Papua New Guinea. They were identified as a family by K Laumann in 1951 under the name Nor–Pondo, and included in Donald Laycock's now-defunct 1973 Sepik–Ramu family. Malcolm Ross (2005) broke up the Nor branch and thus renamed the family Lower Sepik; he classifies it as one branch of a Ramu–Lower Sepik language family. Ethnologue (2009) keeps Nor together but breaks up Pondo.
Contents
Classification
Ross (2005) notes Murik does not share the /p/s characteristic of the first- and second-person pronouns of Kopar and the Pondo languages, so the latter may form a group: Murik vs Kopar–Pondo. Foley (2005) tentatively proposes that Chambri and Angoram may be primary branches: Nor, Chambari, Karawari–Yimas, Angoram.
Pronouns
The pronouns reconstructed for the proto-language are,