Goilalan languages

The Goilalan or Wharton Range languages are a language family spoken around the Wharton Range in the "Bird's Tail" of New Guinea. They were classified as a branch of the Trans–New Guinea languages by Stephen Wurm (1975), but only tentatively retained there in the classification of Malcolm Ross (2005) and removed entirely by Timothy Usher (2020).

The languages are,

• Fuyug
• Tauade
• Northern (Kunimaipa): Biangai, Kunimaipa, Weri

The languages are clearly related, especially northern Biagai, Kunimaipa, and Weri, which might be considered divergent dialects.

Pronouns are:

• Northern: 1SG ne, 2SG ni, 3SG pi
• Tauade/Fuyug: 1SG na, 2SG nu

Tauade also has the possessive pronouns ne-ve, ni-e.

The following basic vocabulary words are from SIL field notes (1973, 1975, 1980), as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database.

The words cited constitute translation equivalents, whether they are cognate (e.g. ʒuvalo, kupal'iai for “two”) or not (e.g. gadolo, kepapaí for “ear”). Notice the very low number of cognate pairs.

Fuyuge reflexes of purported proto-Trans-New Guinea (pTNG) etyma are:

• baba ‘father’ < *mbapa
• sabe ‘saliva’ < *si(mb,p)at
• magata ‘mouth, jaw’ < *maŋgat[a]
• mele-pila ‘tongue’ < *mele-mbilaŋ
• imu ‘eye’ < *(ŋg,k)amu
• ije ‘tree’ < *inda

• Ross, Malcolm (2005). "Pronouns as a preliminary diagnostic for grouping Papuan languages". In Andrew Pawley; Robert Attenborough; Robin Hide; Jack Golson (eds.). Papuan pasts: cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. pp. 15–66. doi:10.15144/PL-572. ISBN 0858835622. OCLC 67292782.