West Papua language is quite various, depending on the district. It is a proposed language family of about 2 dozens of non-Austronesian languages and spoken by about 220,000 people. They are used in Halmahera in West Maluku and Bird’s Head Peninsula in West Papua. Find out everything you need to know about languages used in West Papua on the following page.
West Papua Languages
It is very interesting to learn West Papua language. Among languages spoken by West Papuan, Ternate language is the most popular one. It is used by about 50,000 native speakers. However, don’t be mistaken with Ternate Island because it is the same name. Ternate Island itself is a regional lingua franca. Along with Tidore language, Ternate language was very famous since it was used in ancient spice trade. Some of the languages used in West Papua are:
- North Halmahera
- West Makian
- Amberbaken
- West Bird’s Head
- Abun
- Maybrat
- Burmeso
- Hatam – Mansim
- Mantion – Meax
History of West Papua Language
The West Bird’s Head and North Halmahera languages were first linked by Wilhelm Schimdt, a German linguist, in 1900. Then, H.K.J Cowan associated the two languages to the non-Austronesian in 1957. According to Stephen Wurm, these languages should be classified as Andamanese, Austronesian, and Trans-New Guinea. This is simply because the languages were not only found in West Papua but also Timor, Aru, and Great Andaman.
Malcolm Ross made a different theory in 2005 based on the forms of their pronouns. He suggested that the languages used in West Papua form one of 3 branches of an extended West Papuan family. This includes the Yawa languages and East Bird’s Head – Sentani family that are considered the third branch.
West Papua Languages: Pronouns
Malcolm Ross further reconstructs the pronunciations for proto-West Papuan. They are:
- I – *da, *di
- Thou – *ni, *na, *a-
- She – *mV
- Exclusive we – *mam, *mi-
- Inclusive we – *po-
- You – *nan, *ni-
- They – *yo, *ana, *yo-
The above pronunciations are used by the “core” West Papuan families. However, Hattam only reflects “thou” and “I”. Meanhwile, Amberbaken only reflects “she”, “you”, and “thou”.
The Extended West Papuan languages by Malcolm Rose have several forms, they are *m for “we” and *d for “I”. Meanwhile, most Yawa come with forms of *m for “we” like “imama”. However, these forms are too diverse, making them hard to reconstruct. You need to know that these forms are also found in every family branch. It is only the Amberbaken isolate that doesn’t use these forms. According to Ross, languages in West Papua that are distinguished from EBH-Sentani and Yawa have forms such as *ni or *na for “thou”.
Phonology of West Papua Languages
It is also important to understand the phonology when you learn West Papua language. You need to know that all languages used in East part of Indonesia have 5 or more vowels. Abun and Mpur are known to have tonal languages. Abun comes with 3 lexical tones and Mpur has 4 lexical tones. Meanwhile, Sougb and Meyah are considered picth-accent languages. As for all other languages used in the Bird’s Head Peninsula, they are considered non-tonal.
Compared to all Papuan languages used in the Bird’s Head Peninsula, Abun comes with the largest inventory of consonant. The language is known to have about 20 consonants. Meanhwile, the smallest inventory of consonant is owned by Maybrat. The language is known to have only 11 consonants so far. However, there are some North Halmahera languages that are known to have consonant inventories as large as Abun. These languages include Sahu, Tidore, and Tobelo.
