| Yam | |
|---|---|
| Morehead River | |
| Geographic distribution | Morehead River watershed,New Guinea |
| Linguistic classification | A primarylanguage family
|
| Subdivisions | |
| Language codes | |
| Glottolog | more1255 |
 Map: The Yam languages of New Guinea Yam languages Trans–New Guinea languages Other Papuan languages Austronesian languages Australian languages Uninhabited | |
TheYam languages, also known as theMorehead River languages, are afamily ofPapuan languages. They include many of the languages south and west of theFly River in Papua New Guinea and IndonesianWestern New Guinea (South Papua).
The nameMorehead and Upper Maro River, orMorehead–Maro, refers to the area around theMorehead andMaro rivers. Most of the languages are found between these rivers, but the Nambu subgroup are spoken east of the Morehead. Evans (2012) refers to the family instead with the more compact nameYam. This name is motivated by a number of linguistic and cultural items of significance:yam (and cognates) means "custom, tradition";yəm (and cognates) means "is"; and yam tubers are the local staple and of central cultural importance.
Ross (2005) tentatively includes the Yam languages in the proposedTrans-Fly – Bulaka River family. More recently (Evans 2012) has argued that this is not justified and more data has to be gathered. Evans (2018) classifies thePahoturi River languages as an independent language family.[1]
Yam languages have also been in intensive contact withMarind andSuki speakers, who had historically expanded into Yam-speaking territories via headhunting raids and other expansionary migrations.[1]
Internal classification of the Yam languages:[2]
Wichmann (2013) did not find a connection between the branches in his automated comparison.[3]
Yam languages are spoken by up to 3,000 people on both sides of the border in Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. InPapua New Guinea, Yam languages are spoken inMorehead Rural LLG,Western Province. InPapua,Indonesia, Yam languages are spoken inMerauke Regency.[1]
Yam languages and respective demographic information listed byEvans (2018) are provided below.[1] Geographical coordinates are also provided for some villages.[4]
See also:Districts of Papua (Indonesian Wikipedia)
The pronouns Ross (2005) reconstructs for the family are,
| I/we | *ni |
| you | *bu |
| s/he/they | *be |
Many Yam languages displayvowel harmony, including inNambu andTonda languages.[1]
The following basic vocabulary words are from McElhanon & Voorhoeve (1970)[5] and Voorhoeve (1975),[6] as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database.[7]
The words cited constitute translation equivalents, whether they are cognate (e.g.tor,ter for “tooth”) or not (e.g.sento,yarmaker for “bird”).
| gloss | Kanum | Yei |
|---|---|---|
| head | mel | kilpel |
| hair | mel-kata | peab |
| eye | si | cur |
| tooth | tor | ter |
| leg | tegu | cere |
| louse | neːmpin | nim |
| dog | krar | jeu |
| pig | kwer | becek |
| bird | sento | yarmaker |
| egg | bel | mekur |
| blood | mbel | gul |
| bone | mbaːr | gor |
| skin | keikei | paːr |
| tree | per | per |
| man | ire | el-lu |
| sun | koŋko | mir |
| water | ataka | kao |
| fire | mens | benj |
| stone | melle | mejer |
| name | iu | ore |
| eat | anaŋ | cenye |
| one | namper | nampei |
| two | yempoka | yetapae |