Huon languages

Huon
Geographic distribution:	New Guinea
Linguistic classification:	Trans–New Guinea Finisterre–Huon Huon
Subdivisions:	Eastern Western
Glottolog:	huon1246

The Huon languages are a family within the original Trans–New Guinea (TNG) proposal, and William A. Foley considers their TNG identity to be established. They share with the Finisterre languages verbs which are suppletive depending on the person & number of the object, strong morphological evidence that they are related.

Internal structure

Huon and Finisterre, and then the connection between them, were identified by Kenneth McElhanon (1967, 1970). They are clearly valid language families. Huon contains two clear branches, Eastern and Western. The Western languages allow more consonants in syllable-final position (p, t, k, m, n, ŋ), while the Eastern languages have neutralized those distinctions to two, the glottal stop (written c) and the velar nasal (McElhanon 1974: 17). Beyond that, classification is based on lexicostatistics, which is generally unreliable.

• Huon family
  • Eastern Huon branch
    • Kâte, Mape, Sene
    • Migabac, Momare
    • Kube, Tobo
    • Dedua
    • Kovai
  • Western Huon branch
    • Burum (Mindik), Borong (Kosorong)
    • Kinalakna, Kumokio
    • Mese, Nabak
    • Komba, Selepet–Timbe
    • Nomu
    • Ono
    • Sialum

Kâte is the local lingua franca.

References

• McElhanon, K. A. (1970). Lexicostatistics and the classification of Huon Peninsula languages. Oceania 40: 215-231.
• McElhanon, K. A. (1974). The glottal stop in Kâte. Kivung 7: 16-22.