Senagi languages

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The Senagi languages are a small independent family of Papuan languages in the classification of Malcolm Ross, that had been part of Stephen Würm's Trans-New Guinea proposal.

The Angor language is unusual in that it distinguishes gender in the second- and third-person dual and plural (you and they), but not in the singular. It is not clear if Dera does the same.

[edit] Classification

The Senagi family consists of only two languages:

  • Senagi family: Angor, Dera

The most promising external links are with the Sepik and Torricelli languages. The pronoun for "I" is reconstructed as *wan for both proto-Senagi and proto-Sepik, while the Angor masculine dual and plural pronominal suffixes -fa- and -mu- appear to reflect the proto-Sepik and proto-Torricelli dual and plural pronominal suffixes *-p and *-m.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  • 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. ISBN 0858835622. OCLC 67292782.