TheMailuan orCloudy Bay languages are a small family ofTrans–New Guinea languages spoken aroundCloudy Bay in the "Bird's Tail" (southeastern peninsula) of New Guinea. They are classified within theSoutheast Papuan branch of Trans–New Guinea.

The languages, which all share about half of their vocabulary, are,

• Domu,Binahari–Binahari-Ma,Morawa,Mailu (Magi),Laua

Bauwaki–O'oku is closely related to the Mailuan languages.

Dutton (1971) said Bauwaki was a link to theYareban languages. It has greater lexical similarity withAneme Wake (Yareban) than the closest Mailuan language, Domu. Usher (2020) classifies Mailuan, Bauwaki and Yareban together.^[1]

Magi shows evidence oflanguage shift from an Oceanic language in many Oceanic words.

Usher (2020) reconstructs the proto-Mailuan–Yareban pronouns as:^[1]

	sg	du	pl
1excl	*na		*ge
1incl		*gu	*i
2	*ga		*ja
3	*e		*ema

Ross (1995) reconstructs the Mailuan pronouns as:

	sg	du	pl
1	*i	*gu-	*ge
2	*ga	*[j]a	*[j]a, *mee
3		*emu

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The following basic vocabulary words are from Thomson (1975)^[2] and various SIL field notes, as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database.^[3]

The words cited constitute translation equivalents, whether they are cognate (e.g.kuma,uma,tuma for “louse”) or not (e.g.baka,ulim,muruu for “egg”).

Additional word lists can be found in Ray (1938).^[5]

Mailuan reflexes ofproto-Trans-New Guinea (pTNG) etyma are:^[6]

Mailu language:

• ama ‘breast’ < *amu
• maa ‘mouth’ < *maŋgat[a]
• kisa ‘bone’ < *kondaC
• tupa ‘short’ < *tu(p,mb)a(C)
• guia ‘cassowary’ < *ku(y)a

Bauwaki language:

• baba ‘father’ < *mbapa
• idi ‘hair’ < *iti[C]
• (ine) ibi ‘name’ < *imbi
• iini- ‘sleep’ < *kin(i,u)-

• Ross, Malcolm (2005). "Pronouns as a preliminary diagnostic for grouping Papuan languages". InAndrew Pawley; Robert Attenborough; Robin Hide; Jack Golson (eds.).Papuan pasts: cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. pp. 15–66.doi:10.15144/PL-572.ISBN 0858835622.OCLC 67292782.

• Mailuan languages
• Mailu–Yareban languages
• Languages of Central Province (Papua New Guinea)

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