Papuan
Sign in to savenon-Austronesian languages of New Guinea and adjacent islands
AI overview
"Papuan" refers to a diverse group of non-Austronesian languages spoken in New Guinea and nearby islands, representing some of the world's most linguistically distinct populations. These languages matter because they reveal crucial information about human migration patterns, cultural diversity, and linguistic evolution in one of the world's most complex language regions.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Article
The Papuan languages are the non-Austronesian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea, as well as neighbouring islands in Eastern Indonesia, Solomon Islands, and East Timor. It is a strictly geographical grouping, and does not imply a genetic relationship.
New Guinea is the most linguistically diverse region in the world. Besides the Austronesian languages, there arguably are some 800 languages divided into perhaps sixty small language families, with unclear relationships to each other or to any other languages, plus many language isolates. The majority of the Papuan languages are spoken on the island of New Guinea, with a number spoken in the Bismarck Archipelago, Bougainville Island and the Solomon Islands (for example, Lavukaleve) to the east, and Halmahera, Timor and the Alor archipelago to the west. The westernmost language, Tambora in Sumbawa, is extinct. One Papuan language, Meriam, is spoken within the national borders of Australia, in the eastern Torres Strait.