Senagi languages
| Senagi | |
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution: | New Guinea |
| Linguistic classification: | a possible primary language family |
| Subdivisions: | |
| Glottolog: | sena1264[1] |
The Senagi languages are a small independent family of Papuan languages in the classification of Malcolm Ross, that had been part of Stephen Wurm'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.
Classification
The Senagi family consists of only two languages:
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.
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.