The Marind–Yaqai (Marind–Yakhai) languages are a well established language family of Papuan languages, spoken by the Marind-anim. They form part of the Trans–New Guinea languages in the classifications of Stephen Wurm and Malcolm Ross, and were established as part of the Anim branch of TNG by Timothy Usher.

Quick Facts Ethnicity, Geographic distribution ...
Marind–Yakhai
Marind
EthnicityMarind people
Geographic
distribution
South Papua
Linguistic classificationTrans–New Guinea
Subdivisions
  • Marind
  • Yaqay
Glottologmari1437
Thumb
Map: The Marind–Yaqai languages of New Guinea
  The Marind and Yaqai languages
  Other Trans–New Guinea languages
  Other Papuan languages
  Austronesian languages
  Uninhabited
Close

Languages

The languages are:

Proto-language

Phonemes

Usher (2020) reconstructs the consonant inventory as follows:[2]

*m*n
*p*t*k
*b*d*g
*mb*nd*ŋg
*s*h
*w*j

Vowels are *a *e *i *o *u.

Pronouns

The pronouns are:[1]

More information sg, pl ...
sgpl
1 *nok ?
2 *oɣ*eoɣ
3m *anep*anip
3f *anup
Close

Classification

The Marind languages were partially identified by Sidney Herbert Ray and JHP Murray in 1918; the family was filled out by JHMC Boelaars in 1950. It was incorporated into Trans–New Guinea by Stephen Wurm in 1975.

The Boazi languages were formerly classified as Marind.

Evolution

Marind reflexes of proto-Trans-New Guinea (pTNG) etyma:[3]

  • kase ‘saliva’ < pTNG *kasipa ‘spit’
  • maŋgat ‘mouth’ < *maŋgat[a]
  • mudu-meŋ ‘belly’ < *mundu-maŋgV ‘heart’
  • mokom ‘fruit, seed’ < *maŋgV
  • saŋga ‘hand, finger, arm’ < *sa(ŋg,k)(a,i)l ‘hand, claw’
  • ‘sand’ < *sa(ŋg,k)asiŋ
  • de ‘tree’ < *inda
  • iwar ‘wind’ < *kumbutu
  • kuyu ‘cassowary’ < *ku(y)a

See also

Further reading

  • Drabbe, Petrus. 1950. Twee dialecten van de Awju-taal [Two dialects of the Awyu language]. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 106: 92–147.
  • Drabbe, Petrus. 1954a. Comparative Vocabulary 100 words in 24 languages. Posieux/Fribourg: Instituut Anthropos.
  • Drabbe, Petrus. 1954b. Talen en dialecten van zuid-west Nieuw-Guinea [Languages and Dialects of Southwest New Guinea]. Posieux/Fribourg: Instituut Anthropos.
  • Drabbe, Petrus. 1955. Spraakkunst van het Marind: Zuidkust Nederlands Nieuw-Guinea [A Grammar of Marind: South Coast of New Guinea]. Wien-Mödling: Drukkerij van het Missiehuis St. Gabriël.

References

Wikiwand in your browser!

Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.

Every time you click a link to Wikipedia, Wiktionary or Wikiquote in your browser's search results, it will show the modern Wikiwand interface.

Wikiwand extension is a five stars, simple, with minimum permission required to keep your browsing private, safe and transparent.