| Senu River | |
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution | Senu River region,Papua New Guinea |
| Linguistic classification | One of the world's primarylanguage families |
| Subdivisions | |
| Language codes | |
| Glottolog | None kwom1263 (Kwomtari–Nai) |
 The neighboring Kwomtari–Nai and Fas language families | |
TheSenu River languages are a smalllanguage family spoken in theSenu River watershed ofPapua New Guinea.They consist at least of theKwomtari languages,Kwomtari andNai, with several additional languages more distantly related to them.
The family consists of at least the two relatively closely related languages Kwomtari and Nai.
Baron adds the highly divergent language Guriaso:
Guriaso shares a small number of cognates with Kwomtari–Nai. Baron (1983) considers the evidence to be convincing when a correspondence between/ɾ~l/ and/n/ (from*ɾ) is established:
| Gloss | Guriaso | Kwomtari |
|---|---|---|
| Verb suffixes (1pl, 2pl, 3pl) | -nɔ, -mɛ, -no | -ɾe, -mo, -ɾe* |
| dog | map | mau |
| ear | mətɛnu | futɛne |
| crocodile | mɔməni | maməle |
| small | tɔkəno | tɔkweɾo |
| nose | apədu | tipu** |
* Compare Biaka-ɾo,-mo,-na.
**Metathesis of /p/ and /t/.
Usher further classifiesYale (Nagatman) with Guriaso, and addsBusa, all under the name "Senu River".[1]
There has been confusion over the membership of the Kwomtari family, apparently due to a misalignment in the publication (Loving & Bass 1964) of the data used for the initial classification. (See Baron 1983.) Because of this, Laycock classified the Kwomtari languages as part of a spuriousKwomtari–Fas family, which confusingly was also often called "Kwomtari" in the literature. However, Baron sees no evidence that the similarities are due to relationship. Usher likewise discounts the inclusion of the Fas languages. SeeKwomtari–Fas languages for details.
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