The West Bird's Head (WBH) family is a well-defined family of six languages spoken at the western end of the Bird's Head Peninsula of New Guinea and the eastern part of the island of Salawati opposite the Bird's Head's western shore. Based on pronominal evidence, they appear to be related to the North Halmahera languages of North Maluku.[1]
Kuwani is attested only from a single word list, but is clearly distinct.[3]
These languages cannot be easily linked to other families of the Bird‘s Head Peninsula.[2]: 626 They have been plausibly connected to the geographically close North Halmahera (NH) family, a relationship considered clear by Reesink 1998;[4] however, the evidence does not appear to be conclusive.[1][5]: 20 In particular, the available lexical evidence is flimsy, as noted by Holton and Klamer (2018).[2]: 626–627 On the other hand, the geographical proximity of the two families lends credibility to this proposal. The connection between WBH and NH was first proposed by H.K.J. Cowan (1957), and further discussed by C.L. Voorhoeve (1987, 1994).[2]: 580
A link between WBH and the isolates Abun and Maybrat has also been proposed (Wichmann 2013, Flassy 2002).[6][2]: 582
Vocabulary comparison
The following basic vocabulary words are from Voorhoeve (1975),[7] as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database.[8]
The words cited constitute translation equivalents, whether they are cognate (e.g. kalen, kelem, kele for “bird”) or not (e.g. tolok, begu, niwi for “egg”).
^ abcdeHolton, Gary; Klamer, Marian (2018). "The Papuan languages of East Nusantara and the Bird's Head". 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. 569–640. doi:10.1515/9783110295252-005. ISBN978-3-11-028642-7. OCLC1041880153.
^Voorhoeve, C.L. 1975. West Papuan Phylum languages on the mainland of New Guinea: Bird's Head (Vogelkop) Peninsula. Papuan Languages and the New Guinea Linguistic Scene, ed. by S.A. Wurm, 717-28. (Pacific Linguistics C-38). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
^Reesink, Ger P. (1998). "The Bird's Head as Sprachbund". In Miedema, Jelle; Odé, Cecilia; Dam, Rien A.C. (eds.). Perspectives on the Bird‘s Head of Irian Jaya, Indonesia; Proceedings of the Conference, Leiden, 13–17 October 1997. Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopi. pp. 603–642. doi:10.1163/9789004652644_032. ISBN978-9-042-00644-7. OCLC41025250.
^van Staden, Miriam; Reesink, Ger (2008). "Serial verb constructions in a linguistic area". In Senft, Gunter (ed.). Serial verb constructions in Austronesian and Papuan languages. Pacific Linguistics 594. Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University. pp. 17–54.
^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.
^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
