East Strickland languages

The East Strickland or Strickland River languages are a family of Papuan languages.

The East Strickland languages actually form a language continuum. Shaw (1986) recognizes six languages, which are:

• Upper: Fembe (Agala), Konai
• Odoodee (Tomu)
• Central/Middle: Gobasi (Nomad), Kubo, Samo (Daba)

Gobasi, Odoodee and Samo, but especially Gobasi, are also known as "Nomad".

Pronouns are:

	sg	du	pl
1	*na, *ã	*o-li, *a-la	*oi
2	*nõ	*nĩ-le	*nĩ
3	*yõ	*i-le	*yã, *di

The following basic vocabulary words are from McElhanon & Voorhoeve (1970), Shaw (1973), and Shaw (1986), as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database.

The words cited constitute translation equivalents, whether they are cognate (e.g. ulugib, ulukib, ulʌkib for “head”) or not (e.g. dob, helehai, tano for “one”).

Proposed East Strickland reflexes of proto-Trans-New Guinea (pTNG) etyma are:

Samo language:

• (da)subu ‘ashes’ < *sumbu
• si- ‘burn’ < *nj(a,e,i)-
• na- ‘eat’ < *na-
• magara ‘mouth’ < *maŋgat[a]
• korofu ‘skin’ < *(ŋg,k)a(n,t)apu
• mere(ma) ‘tongue’ < *me(l,n)e
• mini ‘nose’ < *mundu

Bibo language:

• (da)suf ‘ashes’ < *sumbu

Agala language:

• fulu(ma) ali ‘to fly’ < *pululu-

• 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.