Anim languages

The Anim or Fly River languages are a language family in south-central New Guinea established by Usher & Suter (2015). The names of the family derive from the Fly River and from the Proto-Anim word *anim 'people'.

The 17 Anim languages belong to the following four subfamilies:

• Inland Gulf
• Tirio (Lower Fly River)
• Boazi (Lake Murray)
• Marind (Marind–Yaqai)

The moribund Abom language, previously considered a member of the Tirio family, is of uncertain classification, possibly Trans–New Guinea, but does not appear to be Anim. The extinct Karami language, attested only in a short word list and previously assigned to the Inland Gulf family, defies classification (Usher and Suter 2015).

Anim languages and respective demographic information listed by Evans (2018) are provided below.

Usher (2020) reconstructs the consonant inventory as follows:

Vowels are *a *e *i *o *u.

Proto-Anim pronouns (Usher and Suter 2015):

By 2020, comparison with the neighboring TNG branch Awyu–Ok had led so some revision of the reconstructions. Here are the nominative and possessive/object forms:

The demonstrative third-person forms *e-, *u-, *i- are an innovation shared with proto-Awyu–Ok, which has the same vowel ablaut in the second person as well. They reflect a gender ablaut of msg *e, fsg *u, nsg *[a/o], and pl *i, as in *anem 'man', *anum 'woman', *anim 'people', or *we 'father', *wu 'mother', *wi 'parents'.

Proto-Anim lexical reconstructions by Usher & Suter (2015) are:

Below are selected reconstructions for Proto-Fly River (Proto-Anim) and branches by Usher (2020).

• Timothy Usher & Edgar Suter, New Guinea World, Proto–Fly River (see also reconstructions of branches)