South Bird's Head languages

The South Bird's Head or South Doberai languages are three families of Papuan languages. They form part of the Trans–New Guinea languages in the classifications of Malcolm Ross (2005) and Timothy Usher (2020), though Pawley and Hammarström (2018) do not consider them to be part of Trans–New Guinea.^[1] However, according to Dryer (2022), based on a preliminary quantitative analysis of data from the ASJP database, South Bird's Head languages are likely to be a subgroup of Trans–New Guinea.^[2]

South Bird's Head
South Doberai North Berau Gulf
(disputed)
Geographic distribution	West Papua
Linguistic classification	? Trans–New Guinea ? Berau Gulf South Bird's Head
Subdivisions	South Bird's Head proper Inanwatan Konda–Yahadian
Language codes
Glottolog	None
Map: The South Bird's Head languages of New Guinea   The South Bird's Head languages   Other Trans–New Guinea languages   Other Papuan languages   Austronesian languages   Uninhabited

Languages

The languages are as follows,^[3][4][1]

• South Bird's Head
  • Konda-Yahadian (Yabin): Konda, Yahadian
  • Inanwatan (West South Bird's Head): Duriankere, Inanwatan (Suabo)
  • South Bird's Head proper (East South Bird's Head):
    • Kais (Kampong Baru)
    • Iwaro–Kaburi
      • Kaburi
      • Puragi (Iwaro)
    • Kokoda–Arandai
      • Kokoda (Tarof, Kasuweri)
      • Arandai
        • Kemberano (Weriagar, Barau)
        • Dombano (Tomu)

Noting low cognacy rates, Holton and Klamer (2018) tentatively consider the following three language groups to each be independent language families, pending further evidence.^[5]

• Konda–Yahadian
• Inanwatan–Duriankere
• Nuclear South Bird's Head

Usher classifies the South Bird's Head languages as part of a wider Berau Gulf branch of Trans–New Guinea.^[3]

Pronouns

The pronouns are:

		singular	plural
1st person	exclusive	*na	*ni-ri, *i-ri
	inclusive		*na-ri, *ya-ri
2nd person		*a	*a-ri, *i-ri

3SG *ni is reconstructable for SBH proper. There appears to be both a plural vowel change from *a to *i, as in proto-TNG, and a plural suffix *-ri.

Cognates

Below are cognates in Nuclear South Bird's Head languages (Arandai, Kokoda, Kemberano, Kaburi, Kais, Puragi) demonstrating their relatedness, as listed by Holton & Klamer (2018):^[5]

Nuclear South Bird's Head family cognates

gloss	Arandai	Kokoda	Kemberano	Kaburi	Kais	Puragi
‘eye’	emago	mago	magu	amiagu	magu	imagu
‘head’	kabe	kaba	kabe	wa’ava	kabo	koibi
‘egg’	kuo	ukwo	oku	uko	uku	vuko
‘one’	onate	onasia	anate	ma’aja	onate	mo’onata
‘two’	ogi	ogia	oge	uge	uge	oge
‘I’	nendi	nedi	nedi	neri	neri	nedi

South Bird's Head basic vocabulary quoted by Holton & Klamer (2018)^[5] from de Vries (2004), showing diverse non-cognate vocabulary across different language groups:^[6]

South Bird's Head basic vocabulary comparison

gloss	Yahadian	Inanwatan	Kokoda	Puragi
arm/hand	re	ewó	obora	nebɔru
leg/foot	dɛbɛ		ɔtɔra	neʔɔru
house	ɔ	meʔáro	kɛnia	einɔ
good	hɔbɔre	sówato	nigeja	nai/najɔ
dog	ɟia	méwoʔo	dawɔra	rɔga
pig	mɔmɔ	bidó	tabai	βuʔi
chicken	kokoro	ádiro	koko	korau
louse	nɔ	ʔóto	kɔnɔ	kɔnɔ
water/river	hɛdɛ/mu	tó/múro	tai/tɔiria	adɔna/ɔwedi
banana	huŋgunɔn	ɸúgi(do)	udi	amimi

Morphology

Except for the outlier languages Konda and Yahadian, all South Bird's Head languages have nouns classified according to masculine and feminine genders, which are determined with final vowel quality.^[5] West Bird's Head languages also mark nouns for gender.

Syntax

Unlike many other languages of the Bird's Head Peninsula which display SVO word order (such as Abun, Mpur, Maibrat, West Bird's Head, and others), the South Bird's Head languages have SOV word order.^{[5]: 588–590}

Further reading

• Berry, Keith; Berry, Christine (1987). "A survey of the South Bird's Head Stock". Workpapers in Indonesian Languages and Cultures. 4: 81–117.
• Cowan, H. K. J. 1953. Voorlopige Resultaten van een Ambtelijk Taalonderzoek in Nieuw-Guinea [Tentative Results of a Governmental Linguistic Study in New Guinea]. ’S-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff.
• Galis, Klaas Wilhelm. 1955. Talen en dialecten van Nederlands Nieuw-Guinea [Languages and dialects of Netherlands New Guinea]. Tijdschrift Nieuw-Guinea 16: 109–118, 134–145, 161–178.
• Smits, Leo and Clemens L. Voorhoeve. 1998. The J.C. Anceaux Collection of Wordlists of Irian Jaya Languages B: Non-Austronesian (Papuan) languages (Part II). Leiden-Jakarta: Department of Cultures and Languages of Southeast Asia and Oceania.