Trans–New Guinea languages

The Trans - New Guinea languages ​​( also: Trans- New Guinea Phylum ) are both numerically, as well as the geographical distribution produces the largest family of languages ​​within the Austronesian languages ​​of New Guinea - not, the so-called Papuan languages.

They include more than 500 languages ​​, they are spoken to about 80 percent of New Guinea and at the same time include about 80 percent of the speakers of Papua languages ​​to speakers of a "Trans - New Guinea language".

Significant Trans - New Guinea languages

There are only seven Papua languages ​​with at least 100,000 speakers, they all belong to the Trans - New Guinea Makrophylum:

  • Dani 270,000, Dani- Kwerba
  • Enga 170,000, East New Guinea Highlands
  • Melpa ( Hagen) 130,000, East New Guinea Highlands
  • Wahgi 100,000, East New Guinea Highlands
  • Bunak: 100,000, Timor - Alor - pantar
  • Makasae: 100,000, Timor - Alor - pantar
  • Ekari: 100,000, Wissel Lakes

Another major language is

  • Chimbu ( Simbu, Kuman ) 80,000, East New Guinea Highlands

History of Research

The language group of the Trans - New Guinea languages ​​was postulated in 1970 by CL Voorhoeve and Kenneth McElhanon. In 1975, the group of Stephen Wurm has been redefined, where he included more languages ​​and it would therefore be spread over large parts of New Guinea, Timor and smaller neighboring islands. 2005 was reduced by about the group 1/6 by the work of Malcolm Ross, the fundamental analysis of worm but supported. Other linguists such as William A. Foley doubt the correctness of the worm between analysis and prefer to set up several smaller groups alongside the Trans - New Guinea Main group that does not belong to this family.

Grammatical peculiarities

Phonology

As typical of the Trans - New Guinea phylum is that they usually usually have only one fricative two rows of closure sounds as well. Most Trans - New Guinea languages ​​have a five -vowel system, consisting of a, e, i, o, u

In many of these languages ​​voiced plosives are pränasaliert. However, this is a feature which is also true for many other Papuan.

Many Trans - New Guinea languages ​​have only open syllables, ie those that end in a vowel.

Morphology

A special feature of the Trans - New Guinea languages ​​is that they show a correlation between a phonological feature and a grammatical category. Singular forms therefore have back vowels (a, o, u), plural forms, front vowels (e, i). In many languages, thereby, the plural pattern is also used for the third person singular. A typical system of personal pronouns is the language Tauya, which is spoken in the south of the Ramu River Madang:

There are also many TNGP languages ​​Ablautregeln, change the verb stem, depending on the number.

Syntax

The existence of medial verbs is generally regarded as very typical of the Trans - New Guinea Phylum. Medial verbs are verbs with auxiliary verbs or affixes that are used for the connection of sentences and indicate whether the subject of the first movement is the same as or different than that of the second set. To illustrate an example from the above-mentioned Tauya:

Internal structure

Enga Province East New Guinea Highlands languages Melpa language Bunak language Makasae language William Foley (linguist) Fricative consonant Apophony Grammatical number Marind people Alor Island Kisar Liran Languages of Papua New Guinea
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