Manubaran languages


The Manubaran languages are a small family of Trans-New Guinea languages spoken around Mount [Brown |Mount Brown] in the "Bird's Tail" of New Guinea. They are classified within the Southeast [Papuan languages|Southeast Papuan] branch of Trans-New Guinea.

Languages

The languages are Doromu and Maria [language |Maria], and are 63% lexically similar.

Proto-language

Phonemes

Usher reconstructs the consonant inventory as follows:
Vowels are *a *e *i *o *u.

Pronouns

Usher reconstructs the pronouns as:

Basic vocabulary

Usher (2020)

Some lexical reconstructions of Proto-Mount Brown and Proto-Doromu-Koki, as well as Proto-Gebi and Proto-Maria, by Usher are:

Ross (2014)

The following basic vocabulary words of Proto-Manubaran and lower-level reconstructions by Malcolm Ross are from the Trans-New Guinea database:

Evolution

reflexes of proto-Trans-New Guinea etyma are:
  • ama ‘mother’ < *am
  • baba ‘father’ < *mbapa
  • kuyau ‘cassowary’ < *kua
  • ita ‘tree’ < *inda