Information concerning the « East Bird’s Head » languages

Where are these languages spoken ?

These languages are spoken in Papua New Guinea.

Total number of speakers (estimate) :

Roughly 70 000 according to the SIL

Classification:

This group includes 8 languages

East Bird’s Head

Manikion

Meax (alternative name: Meyah)

Meninggo (alternative name: Moskona)

Sentani

Sowari (alternative name: Demta)

Nafri

Sentani

Tabla

Burmeso (alternative name : Taurap)

Comments on the classification of the « East Bird’s Head » :

These languages  have sometimes been classified with the Trans-New Guinea language group, but there is slim linguistic proof of this relationship and it is probably preferable to consider these languages as a separate group at this time. The similarities between the « East Bird’s Head » and the « Sentani » language families is a proposal by Ross (2005) which we have adopted here.

Sources

Ross, Malcolm. «Pronouns as a preliminary diagnostic for grouping Papuan languages« . dans: Papuan pasts: cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples. Andrew Pawley, Robert Attenborough, Robin Hide, Jack Golson, eds. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. (2005).