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The Yam languages, also known as the Morehead River languages, are a family of Papuan languages. They include many of the languages south and west of the Fly River in Papua New Guinea and Indonesian West Papua.
Name
The name Morehead and Upper Maro River refers to the area around the Morehead and Maro 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 name Yam. 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.
External relationships
Ross (2005) tentatively includes the Yam languages in the proposed Trans-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 the Pahoturi River languages as an independent language family.[1]
Yam languages have also been in intensive contact with Marind and Suki speakers, who had historically expanded into Yam-speaking territories via headhunting raids and other expansionary migrations.[1]
Yam languages and respective demographic information listed by Evans (2018) are provided below.[1] Geographical coordinates are also provided for some villages.[4]
Carroll, Matthew J., Nicholas Evans, I Wayan Arka, Christian Döhler, Eri Kashima, Volker Gast, Tina Gregor, Julia Miller, Emil Mittag, Bruno Olsson, Dineke Schokkin, Jeff Siegel, Charlotte van Tongeren & Kyla Quinn. 2016. Yamfinder: Southern New Guinea Lexical Database.
Evans, Nicholas, I Wayan Arka, Matthew Carroll, Christian Döhler, Eri Kashima, Emil Mittag, Kyla Quinn, Jeff Siegel, Philip Tama & Charlotte van Tongeren. 2017. The languages of Southern New Guinea. In Bill Palmer (ed.), The languages and linguistics of the New Guinea area, 641–774. Berlin; Boston: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN978-3-11-029525-2. Accessed on 2019-11-12.
Kaiping, Gereon A. & Edwards, Owen & Klamer, Marian (eds.). 2019. LexiRumah 2.2.3. Leiden: Leiden University Centre for Linguistics. Available online at https://lexirumah.model-ling.eu/lexirumah/. Accessed on 2019-09-14.
Greenhill et al., 2008. In: Kaiping, Gereon A. & Edwards, Owen & Klamer, Marian (eds.). 2019. LexiRumah 2.2.3. Leiden: Leiden University Centre for Linguistics. Available online at https://lexirumah.model-ling.eu/lexirumah/. Accessed on 2019-09-14.
References
^ abcdeEvans, 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. ISBN978-3-11-028642-7.
^Wichmann, Søren. 2013. A classification of Papuan languages. In: Hammarström, Harald and Wilco van den Heuvel (eds.), History, contact and classification of Papuan languages (Language and Linguistics in Melanesia, Special Issue 2012), 313-386. Port Moresby: Linguistic Society of Papua New Guinea.
^McElhanon, K.A. and Voorhoeve, C.L. The Trans-New Guinea Phylum: Explorations in deep-level genetic relationships. B-16, vi + 112 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1970. doi:10.15144/PL-B16
^Voorhoeve, C.L. Languages of Irian Jaya: Checklist. Preliminary classification, language maps, wordlists. B-31, iv + 133 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1975. doi:10.15144/PL-B31
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. ISBN0858835622. OCLC67292782.
