The Lower Mamberamo languages are a recently proposed language family linking two languages spoken along the northern coast of Papua province, Indonesia, near the mouth of the Mamberamo River. They have various been classified either as heavily Papuanized Austronesian languages belonging to the SHWNG branch, or as Papuan languages that had undergone heavy Austronesian influence. Glottolog 3.4 classifies Lower Mamberamo as Austronesian, while Donohue classifies it as Papuan. Kamholz (2014) classifies Warembori and Yoke each as coordinate primary subgroups of the South Halmahera–West New Guinea languages.Kamholz, David (2014). Austronesians in Papua: Diversification and change in South Halmahera–West New Guinea . Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8zg8b1vd
Languages The two languages, Warembori and Yoke, were listed as isolates in Stephen Wurm's widely used classification. Donohue (1998) showed them to be related with shared morphological irregularities.Donohue, Mark (1998 ). Warembori, and the Lower Mamberamo family. Ross (2007) classified Warembori as an Austronesian language based on pronouns; however, Donohue argues that these are borrowed, since the two pronouns most resistant to borrowing, 'I' and 'thou', do not resemble Austronesian or any other language family. The singular prefixes resemble Kwerba languages, but Lower Mamberamo has nothing else in common with that family. (See Warembori language and Yoke language for details.) Donohue argues that they form an independent family, though one perhaps related to another Papuan family, that has been extensively relexified under Austronesian influence, especially in the case of Warembori.
Pauwi, now extinct, may have been a Lower Mamberamo language.
Pronouns Reconstructed independent pronouns in proto-Lower Mamberamo are:
! !! sg !! pl |- ! 1
! 2
! 3
Foley observes that there are likely similarities with Austronesian languages, likely due to contact.
'I' and 'you (sg)' are also shared with neighboring Kwerba languages.
Cognates Basic vocabulary, mostly cognates, of the Lower Mamberamo languages (Warembori and Yoke) listed in Foley (2018):
|+ Lower Mamberamo family basic vocabulary ! gloss !! Warembori !! Yoke !! notes |- | 'bird' || || || < Austronesian |- | 'bone' || || || |- | 'eat' || || || < Austronesian ? |- | 'egg' || || || |- | 'give' || || || |- | 'go' || || || < Austronesian ? |- | 'hair' || || || < Austronesian |- | 'hear' || || || |- | 'kill' || || || < Austronesian |- | 'leg' || || || |- | 'louse' || || || < Austronesian ? |- | 'man' || || || |- | 'name' || || || |- | 'tree' || || || < Austronesian
Vocabulary comparison The following basic vocabulary words are from Voorhoeve (1975),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. as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:
{| class="wikitable sortable" ! gloss !! Warembori !! Yoke |- ! head
! hair
! eye
! tooth
! leg
! louse
! dog
! pig
! bird
! egg
! blood
! bone
! skin
! tree
! man
! sun
! water
! fire
! stone
! name
! eat
! one
! two
Notes
References
See also South Halmahera–West New Guinea languages Papuan languages
External links Lower Mamberamo languages database at TransNewGuinea.org