Social:Dagan languages

Dagan
Meneao Range
Geographic distribution	Southeastern peninsula of Papua New Guinea: Central Province and Milne Bay Province
Linguistic classification	Trans–New Guinea Papuan Peninsula Dagan
Glottolog	daga1274

The Dagan languages are a small family of Trans–New Guinea (TNG) languages spoken in the "Bird's Tail" (southeastern peninsula) of New Guinea, the easternmost Papuan languages on the mainland. They are sometimes included in a speculative Southeast Papuan branch of Trans–New Guinea (TNG), but the Southeast Papuan families have not been shown to be any more closely related to each other than they are to other TNG families.

Languages

The languages are:

Daga, Mapena, Maiwa language (Papuan), Dima (Jimajima), Ginuman, Kanasi (Sona), Onjob, Umanakaina (Gwedena), and the nearly extinct Turaka.

Although clearly related, they are not particularly close. The closest language to Umanakaina, for example, is Ginuman, which is only 23% lexically similar.

Pronouns

Pronouns are:

	sg	pl
1	*na	*nu
2	*ga	*ya
3	*me, *-e	*m[a]u

Evolution

Dagan reflexes of proto-Trans-New Guinea (pTNG) etyma:

Daga language:

• ama ‘breast’ < *amu
• meri(nawa) ‘tongue’ < *me(l,n)e
• ira ‘tree’ < *inda

Kanasi language:

• asi ‘ear’ < *kand(e,i)k(V]
• etepa ‘bark’ < *(ŋg,k)a(nd,t)apu ‘skin’
• obosa ‘wind’ < *kumbutu
• oman ‘stone’ < *ka(m,mb)u[CV]
• nene ‘bird’ < *n(e)i

References

Notes

Sources

• Ross, Malcolm (2005). "Pronouns as a preliminary diagnostic for grouping Papuan languages". in Andrew Pawley. Papuan pasts: cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. pp. 15–66. ISBN 0858835622. OCLC 67292782.