Huon Gulf languages

Huon Gulf
Geographic distribution:	Northern New Guinea
Linguistic classification:	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Western Oceanic North New Guinea ? Ngero–Vitiaz ? Huon Gulf
Subdivisions:	Markham languages North Huon Gulf languages Numbami language South Huon Gulf languages

The thirty Huon Gulf languages of Papua New Guinea may form a group of the North New Guinea languages, perhaps within the Ngero–Vitiaz branch of that family.

Classification

A 2008 analysis of the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database found that Numbami fell within the Ngero–Vitiaz languages. The other Huon Gulf languages were not considered, so it is not clear if Numbami is an outlier, or if Huon Gulf is a branch of Ngero–Vitiaz.

The traditional classification of the languages is as follows:

• Markham languages
  • Lower Markham languages
  • Upper Markham languages
  • Watut languages
• North Huon Gulf languages
  • Bukawa
  • Yabem
  • Kela
• Numbami (at least this branch falls within Ngero–Vitiaz)
• South Huon Gulf languages
  • Hote–Buang languages
  • Iwal

References

• Ross, Malcolm (1988). Proto Oceanic and the Austronesian languages of western Melanesia. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.