Baining languages

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The Baining or East New Britain languages are a small language family spoken on the island of New Britain in Papua New Guinea. They were classified as East Papuan languages by Wurm, but this does not now seem tenable.

The languages are Mali (Baining proper), Qaqet, Kairak, Simbali, Taulil, Butam (extinct), Ura, Malkolkol

[edit] Pronouns

The pronouns Ross reconstructs for proto-Baining are,

I	*ŋa	we two	*(ŋ)un	we	*udu
thou	*ŋi	you two	*yu	you	*ŋan
he	*(k)a	they two (M)	*ip	they	*ta
she	*(k)e	they two (F)	?

The possessive pronouns his and her are *vat and *vet.

[edit] See also

• Papuan languages
• East Papuan languages

[edit] References

• Structural Phylogenetics and the Reconstruction of Ancient Language History. Michael Dunn, Angela Terrill, Ger Reesink, Robert A. Foley, Stephen C. Levinson. Science magazine, 23 Sept. 2005, vol. 309, p 2072.
• Malcom Ross (2005). "Pronouns as a preliminary diagnostic for grouping Papuan languages." In: Andrew Pawley, Robert Attenborough, Robin Hide and Jack Golson, eds, Papuan pasts: cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples, 15-66. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.