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Trans-Fly–Bulaka River
Trans-Fly–Bulaka River
South-Central Papuan
Geographic; distribution	New Guinea
Linguistic classification	Proposed language family
Subdivisions	Bulaka River; Waia; Pahoturi; Yam;
Language codes
Glottolog	None
	Map: The Trans-Fly–Bulaka River languages of New Guinea The Trans-Fly–Bulaka River languages Trans–New Guinea languages Other Papuan languages Austronesian languages Australian languages Uninhabited

The Trans-Fly–Bulaka River aka South-Central Papuan languages form a hypothetical family of Papuan languages. They include many of the languages west of the Fly River in southern Papua New Guinea into southern Indonesian West Papua, plus a pair of languages on the Bulaka River a hundred km further west.

The family was posited by Stephen Wurm as a branch of his 1975 Trans–New Guinea proposal. Wurm thought it likely that many of these languages would prove not to belong to Trans–New Guinea, but rather to have been heavily influenced by Trans–New Guinea languages. Malcolm Ross (2005) concurred, and removed most of them.

Classification

None of the families are closely related; indeed, it is difficult to demonstrate a link between any of them. Wurm's 1975 TNG branch included the following eight demonstrated families:

Kiwaian, on the banks and east of the Fly River
Waia, north of the Fly delta
Tirio, on the western bank of the Fly River
Eastern Trans-Fly languages, south of the Fly delta
Pahoturi, west of the Eastern languages
Yam, up to and just across the Indonesian border
Moraori, between Upper Maro and the Marind language
Bulaka River, west of Marind

Ross (2005) accepted the TNG identity of Tirio, Moraori, and, tentatively, Kiwaian. He split off the four Eastern Trans-Fly languages as an independent family. The remainder of the family, which he calls South-Central Papuan, is only tentatively retained: their pronouns are suggestive of a relationship, but this has not been demonstrated.

Trans-Fly–Bulaka River
(South-Central Papuan)

Bulaka River family

	Pahoturi family

	Waia isolate

Yam (Morehead – Upper Maro) family

A more conservative approach would break up Wurm's Trans-Fly–Bulaka River entirely, with two or three of the families remaining within Trans–New Guinea, and five or six being independent. Evans (2012), for example, argues that the inclusion of the Yam language at least is not justified on present evidence. Timothy Usher treats the Bulaka River and Yam languages as separate families, and links the Pahoturi– clade to the Eastern Trans-Fly languages.

Southern New Guinea linguistic area

A Southern New Guinea linguistic area, which spans both Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, consisting of the following families is mentioned in Evans (2018).^[1]

Yelmek-Maklew - 500 speakers
Yam (Morehead-Upper Maro) - 3,000 speakers
Pahoturi River - just over 4,000 speakers
Oriomo (Eastern Trans-Fly) - 6,500 speakers
Trans-New Guinea (TNG)
- Kolopom - just over 7,000 speakers
- Marori - fewer than 20 elderly speakers
- Gogodala-Suki - 30,000 speakers
- Kiwaian - 37,000 speakers
- Anim
  - Marindic - 10,000 speakers
  - Tirio (Lower Fly)
  - Ipiko (Inland Gulf)

Languages within the Southern New Guinea linguistic area generally share these typological features.^[1]

lack of tone (except Kuni-Boazi, possibly Marind, and some Kiwai dialects)
complex verb morphology
limited or no gender (except for the four-way gender system in Anim languages, and the masculine vs. feminine contrast on undergoer-prefixes in the Tonda languages and some Oriomo languages)
lack of verb chaining or switch-reference
single-word verbs form an open class

Pronouns

The pronouns Ross reconstructs for the three families he keeps together are suggestively similar, but it has not been possible to reconstruct common forms:

Proto-Yam (Proto–Morehead – Upper Maro)

I/we	*ni
you	*bu
s/he/they	*be

Proto-Pahoturi

I	*ŋa-na	we	?
thou	ba or be	you	*-bi
s/he	*bo	they	?

Proto-Bulaka River

I	*ŋöl	we	*ŋag
thou	*ob	you	*el
s/he	*ib	they	*im

References

^ ^a ^b Evans, Nicholas (2018). "The languages of Southern New Guinea". In Palmer, Bill (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide. The World of Linguistics. Vol. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 641–774. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.

Ross, Malcolm (2005). "Pronouns as a preliminary diagnostic for grouping Papuan languages". In Andrew 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. ISBN 0858835622. OCLC 67292782.