Markham languages explained

Markham
Region:	Madang and Morobe Provinces, Papua New Guinea
Familycolor:	Austronesian
Fam3:	Oceanic
Fam4:	Western Oceanic
Fam5:	North New Guinea ?
Fam6:	Ngero–Vitiaz ?
Fam7:	Huon Gulf
Protoname:	Proto-Markham
Glotto:	mark1257
Glottorefname:	Markham

The Markham languages form a family of the Huon Gulf languages. It consists of a dozen languages spoken in the Ramu Valley, Markham Valley and associated valley systems in the lowlands of the Madang and Morobe Provinces of Papua New Guinea.^{[1] [2]} Unlike almost other Western Oceanic languages of New Guinea, which are spoken exclusively in coastal areas, many Markham languages are spoken in the mountainous interior of Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea, where they are in heavy contact with Trans-New Guinea languages.^[3]

Although the Markham languages are Austronesian, they have had much contact with neighboring Papuan languages.

A phonological reconstruction of Proto-Markham is presented in Holzknecht (1989) and is summarized below.^[1]

Languages

Labu (= Hapa)

Lower Markham: Aribwaung (= Aribwaungg, Yalu), Aribwatsa^† (= Lae, Lahe), Musom, Nafi (= Sirak), Duwet (= Guwot, Waing), Wampar, Silisili (Middle Watut), Maralango (South Watut), Dangal (South Watut)

Upper Markham: Adzera (dialect cluster: Sarasira, Sukurum), Mari, Wampur

Proto-Markham

Proto-Markham
Familycolor:	Austronesian
Ancestor:	Proto-Austronesian
Ancestor2:	Proto-Malayo-Polynesian
Ancestor3:	Proto-Oceanic
Ancestor4:	Proto-Huon Gulf
Target:	Markham languages

Proto-Markham was reconstructed by Susanne Holzknecht in 1989 in her paper The Markham Languages of Papua New Guinea. It descends from Proto-Huon Gulf on the basis of shared phonological, morphosyntactic and lexicosemantic innovations, such as the merger of Proto-Huon Gulf *t, *r, and *R as Proto-Markham *r, the accretion of *ka- into focal pronoun bases (Proto-Oceanic *kamu "you" > Proto-Markham *ka-gam "id."), and the replacement of Proto-Oceanic *qacan "name" by Proto-Markham *biŋa "id.", among many others.

Vowels

The vowels of Proto-Markham, according to Holzknecht, are:

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	pronounced as / i /		pronounced as / u /
Close-mid	pronounced as / e /		pronounced as / o /
Open		pronounced as / a /

Consonants

The consonants of Proto-Markham, according to Holzknecht, are:

!Labiovelar!Bilabial!Alveolar!Palatal!Velar

Stop	voiced		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
	voiceless	pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Nasal		pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/, *pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/, *pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/, *pronounced as /link/
Fricative			pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Approximant		pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/, *pronounced as /link/

Notes and References

1. Book: Holzknecht, Susanne . The Markham Languages of Papua New Guinea . Pacific Linguistics. 1989 . 0-85883-394-8.
2. Book: Lynch, John . John Lynch (linguist) . Malcolm Ross . Malcolm Ross (linguist) . Terry Crowley . Terry Crowley (linguist) . 2002 . The Oceanic languages . Richmond, Surrey . Curzon . 978-0-7007-1128-4 . 48929366 .
3. Web site: Glottolog . 3.4 . Hammarström . Harald . Forkel . Robert . Haspelmath . Martin . 2019 . Jena . Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.