Ok languages

The Ok languages are a family of about a dozen related Trans–New Guinea languages spoken in a contiguous area of eastern Irian Jaya and western Papua New Guinea. The most numerous language is Ngalum, with some 20,000 speakers; the best known is probably Telefol.

The Ok languages have dyadic kinship terms.

The Ok languages are clearly related. Alan Healey identified them as a family in 1962. He later noted connections with the Asmat languages and Awyu–Dumut families (Healey 1970).

Voorhoeve developed this into a Central and South New Guinea (CSNG) proposal. As part of CSNG, the Ok languages form part of the original proposal for Trans–New Guinea, a position tentatively maintained by Malcolm Ross, though reduced nearly to Healey's original conception. Ross states that he cannot tell if the similarities in CSNG are shared innovations or retentions from proto-TNG. Voorhoeve argues specifically for an Awyu–Ok relationship, and Foley believes that these two families may be closest to Asmat among the TNG languages.

Loughnane and Fedden (2011) claim to have demonstrated that the erstwhile TNG isolate Oksapmin is related to the Ok family. However, this has not been generally accepted because loans from Mountain Ok have not been accounted for.

Van den Heuvel & Fedden (2014) argue that Greater Awyu and Greater Ok are not genetically related, but that their similarities are due to intensive contact.

The languages are:

The following are consonants of Proto-Ok:

Vowels may be /*iː *ʉ *uː *e *a *o/, but this reconstruction may be biased toward Telefol.

Healey & Ross reconstruct the pronouns of proto-Ok are as follows:

Usher (2020) reconstructs the independent pronouns as,

and the subject suffixes as,

Proto-Mountain Ok reflexes of proto-Trans-New Guinea (pTNG) etyma, as quoted by Pawley & Hammarström (2018) from Healey (1964):

• *beːn ‘arm’ < *mbena
• *mburuŋ ‘fingernail’ < *mb(i,u)t(i,u)C
• *katuun ‘knee’ < *(ng,k)atVk
• *maŋkat ‘mouth’ < *maŋgat[a]
• *gitak ‘neck’ < *k(a,e)ndak
• *kum ‘side of neck’ < *kuma(n,ŋ)
• *mutuum ‘nose’ < *mundu
• *falaŋ ‘tongue’ < *mbilaŋ
• *kaliim ‘moon’ < *kal(a,i)m

Some lexical reconstructions by Usher (2020) are:

Proto-Ok-Oksapmin reconstructions from Loughnane and Fedden (2011):

• Proto-Ok-Oksapmin. TransNewGuinea.org. From Loughnane, R. & Fedden, S. 2011. Is Oksapmin Ok?—A Study of the Genetic Relationship between Oksapmin and the Ok Languages. Australian Journal of Linguistics 31:1, 1-42.

Citations

Sources

• 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.

• Timothy Usher, New Guinea World, Proto–Digul River – Ok
• (ibid.) Proto-Ok (see also reconstructions of individual branches)
• Healey, Alan. (1964). The Ok Language Family in New Guinea
• Steer, Martin. (2005). Languages of the Upper Sepik and Central New Guinea