Amto–Musan languages
Amto–Musan is a language family of two closely related but mutually unintelligible Papuan languages, Amto and Siawi, spoken along the Samaia River of Sandaun Province of Papua New Guinea.
Languages
Foley (2018) and Usher (2020) agree that the family consists of two languages.
- Amto–Musan / Samaia River family
External relationships
Amto–Musan was left unclassified by Ross (2005) (see Papuan languages#Ross (2005)) due to lack of data; Wurm (1975) had posited it as an independent family. The family has typological similarities with the Busa language isolate, but these do not appear to demonstrate a genetic relationship.
Timothy Usher links the Amto–Musan languages to their neighbors, the Arai languages and the Pyu language in as Arai–Samaia stock.
Foley (2018) classifies them separately as an independent language family. Foley also notes that due to heavy contact and trade with Left May languages, Amto–Musan languages have borrowed much cultural vocabulary from Left May.
Cognates
Amto-Musan family cognates listed by Foley (2018):
Possible cognates between the Amto-Musan and Left May families:
Possible loanwords reflecting the close trade relationship between Amto-Musan and Left May speakers:
Vocabulary comparison
The following basic vocabulary words are from Conrad & Dye (1975), as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:
The words cited constitute translation equivalents, whether they are cognate (e.g. tipeki, ʌbɛki for “stone”) or not (e.g. twæ, nani for “head”).