| East New Britain | |
| Region: | Gazelle Peninsula, New Britain |
| Ethnicity: | Baining people |
| Familycolor: | Papuan |
| Family: | One of the world's primary language families |
| Child1: | Baining |
| Child2: | Taulil–Butam |
| Glotto: | none |
The East New Britain languages are a possible small language family spoken on the Gazelle Peninsula of New Britain in Papua New Guinea. They were classified as East Papuan languages by Wurm, but this does not now seem tenable. The only comparative work that has been done between the two branches of the proposed family is Ross (2001), which shows similarities in the pronouns.
The languages are:
Mali, Qaqet, Kairak, Simbali, Ura, ?Makolkol (extinct?)
Taulil, Butam (extinct)Makolkol is unattested.
Glottolog does not accept that a connection between the two branches has been demonstrated.[1] Stebbins et al. (2018) note that further work needs to be done, and are uncertain how to explain the similarity in pronouns between the two families with the fact that the ancestors of the Taulil and Butam people had migrated from New Ireland and so presumably would have their closest relatives there.[2]
The pronouns Ross (2001) compares for East New Britain are as follows.
| proto-ENB |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baining | free | ŋua | ŋia | ka | ki | uut | ŋen | ta~ra | uun | uin | ian~iam | |
| gua | gia | aa | ||||||||||
| Taulil | free | ŋa | ŋi | aa | e | daa | yaa | taa | ŋu | yu | ||
| ŋaaŋ | ŋiŋ | aa | e | undu | ŋan | taa | ŋun | yu | ip, vitam | |||
| ŋa | ŋi | vaa | ve | du | ina | ina~ta | ŋunu | yu | ip, ito | |||
| Butam | free | ŋa | ŋi | a | e | ur | ŋan | ta~ra | un | yu | ip | |
| ŋaŋ | ŋiŋ | vat | vet | (r)uru | ŋan | (i)ra | (n)un | ... | ip | |||