| Cenderawasih | |
|---|---|
| West New Guinea | |
| Geographic distribution: |
Cenderawasih Bay, New Guinea |
| Linguistic classification: | Austronesian
|
| Subdivisions: |
Southeast Bomberai
Cenderawasih Bay
|
| Ethnologue code: | 1424-16 |
The Cenderawasih languages, also known[1] as West New Guinea languages, are a moderately supported branch of Austronesian languages of Indonesia, found in the islands and shoreline of Cenderawasih Bay in the provinces of West Papua and Papua.
Most of the languages are only known from short word lists, but Biak and Waropen are fairly well attested.
A 2008 analysis of the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database[2] only supported West New Guinea with the exclusion of the Raja Ampat languages, the only erstwhile West New Guinea languages which lay outside the area of Cenderawasih Bay. Even without Raja Ampat, the level of confidence for unity of the Cenderawasih languages which remain is low, at 70% for the five languages included in the analysis.
Fully supported is a connection between the Yapen languages (on Yapen Island) and Waropen (on Serui Island and the east coast of the bay). The other analysed languages were linked to Yapen-Waropen, but with lesser confidence: Biak (Numfor) at 75%, and Mor (the most divergent) at 70%.
Excluding Raja Ampat, Ethnologue 16 classifies the languages as follows:
None of the branches of Cenderawasih Bay are particularly close, though a 2008 study found a secure connection between Waropen and Yapen.
It is not clear if
is closer to Cenderawasih ot to Raja Ampat. (See Halmahera–Cenderawasih languages.)