Kwomtari languages

The Kwomtari languages are a hypothetical language family of six languages spoken by some 4000 people in the north of Papua New Guinea, near the border with Indonesia. The term "Kwomtari-Baibai languages" sometimes appears, e.g. in Ethnologue, but has not generally been used by linguists.

Classification problems

The "Kwomtari phylum" was first proposed by Loving and Bass (1964). The following classification is based on their proposal, with the addition of the Pyu and Guriaso languages, discovered later.

Kwomtari languages
*Kwomtari family: Kwomtari, Nai (Biaka), Guriaso
*Fas family: Baibai, Fas
*Pyu family-level isolate

Laycock (1973; 1975) grouped the languages differently, placing Kwomtari and Fas together in the "Kwomtari family", and Baibai and Nai (Biaka) together in the "Baibai family". Most later sources (including Ethnologue) follow Laycock's arrangement, for which he published no evidence. However there are good reasons for preferring the classification by Loving and Bass. They found Kwomtari to have 30% cognates with Biaka (Nai). In contrast they note that "Baibai has only 6% cognates with Biaka", and so cannot be assigned to the same family. The Dutch linguist Wietze Baron confirmed the Loving and Bass arrangement in a 1983 survey, and added a new language, Guriaso, as a divergent branch of the Kwomtari family.

A severe problem with accounts of the Kwomtari languages is that few Papuanists (linguists who study Papuan languages) have encountered the languages first-hand, or have even seen the field notes of the linguists who have. Rather they rely on secondary sources perpetuating Laycock's arrangement, which makes the two families look much closer than they actually are. However even Laycock (1973: 43) admitted, "A great deal more work is required on the Kwomtari Phylum before the classification can be regarded as established."

Laycock also added the Pyu language isolate. However, according to Usher, there is nothing to suggest that the Kwomtari family, Fas family, and Pyu are actually related, except that the Kwomtari and Fas families use the same kinship terms.

Malcolm Ross linked the Kwomtari languages to the small Left May (Arai) family in a Left May-Kwomtari proposal, which is based on common pronouns. However, the link appears less straightforward once the correction is made for Loving and Bass' classification. See Left May-Kwomtari for details.

Characteristics of the languages

Practically the only available material on the Kwomtari languages consists of a number of articles on the Fas language. Two papers were published by Wietze Baron (1979, 1983a) on the phonology of this language. Baron argued that the phonological processes of Fas contradict claims by proponents of Natural Generative Phonology that Paul Kiparsky's Opacity Principle allowed no exceptions. See Optimality theory for later developments in phonological theory. Further papers are posted on his website. Recently an honours thesis by Fiona Blake (University of Sydney) has also been posted on the web; she refers to Fas as Momu.

The Fas language apparently has a seven-vowel system. It also has a bilabial trill (Baron 1979: 95) - even though Laycock (1975: 854) expressed his doubts about earlier reports of this feature by Capell (1962).

ee also

*Papuan languages
*Left May-Kwomtari languages

References

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*, posted at: [http://www.kwomtari.net/kwomtari_survey.pdf]
* Blake, Fiona. 2007. 'Spatial reference in Momu'. Posted at [http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/bitstream/2123/1919/1/Blake-hons-thesis.pdf]
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External links

Wietze Baron's site for Kwomtari languages [http://www.kwomtari.net] Fiona Blake's thesis on Momu (Fas) [http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/bitstream/2123/1919/1/Blake-hons-thesis.pdf]