Pawaia language

Pawaia, also known as Sira, Tudahwe, Yasa, is a Papuan language that forms a tentative independent branch of the Trans–New Guinea family in the classification of Malcolm Ross.

Distribution

Pawaia is spoken in:

Chimbu Province: Karimui District
Eastern Highlands Province: Lufa District and Okapa District, Lamari River
Gulf Province: Baimuru [Rural LLG], Purari River near Oroi
Classification

Although Pawaia has reflexes of proto-Trans–New Guinea vocabulary, Ross considers its inclusion questionable on available evidence. Usher classifies it instead with the Teberan languages. Noting insufficient evidence, Pawley and Hammarström leave it as unclassified rather than as part of Trans-New Guinea.
Pawley and Hammarström do not consider there to be sufficient evidence for Pawaia to be classified as part of Trans-New Guinea, though they do note the following lexical resemblances between Pawaia and proto-Trans-New Guinea.

emi ‘breast’ < *amu
in ‘tree’ < *inda
su ‘tooth’ < *ii
Phonology

	Front	Central	Back
High
Mid
Low

Pawaia is also tonal, contrasting high and low tone.

Vocabulary

The following basic vocabulary words are from Macdonald and Trefry, as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database: