The Yareban or Musa River languages are a small family of Trans–New Guinea languages spoken near the Musa River in the "Bird's Tail" (southeastern peninsula) of New Guinea. They are classified within the Southeast Papuan branch of Trans–New Guinea.
Languages The languages are, Moikodi (Doriri) Aneme Wake (Abia) Barijian: Bariji, Nawaru (Sirio) Yareba
Barijian is suggested by lexicostatistics in Dutton (1971).
The only pronouns which are known in enough languages to reconstruct are na 1sg and a 2sg, which are common to all Yareban languages.
Proto-language Phonemes Usher (2020) reconstructs the consonant inventory as follows:New Guinea World, Musa River
| *m || *n || || || |- | *pʰ || *tʰ || [*s] || *kʰ || *ʔ |- | *b || *d || [*dz] || [*g] || |- | *w || *ɾ || *j || || |} *s and *dz were acquired through loans, but may have already been present in the protolanguage. *ʔ and *g may have been allophones.
Vowels are *a *e *i *o *u.
Pronouns Usher (2020) reconstructs the pronouns as:
! !!sg!!du!!pl |- !1excl |rowspan=2|*na|| ||*ewa |- !1incl |*uwa||*i[j]a |- !2 |*a|| ||*ja |- !3 |*dawa|| ||*ema(wa)
Basic vocabulary Some lexical reconstructions by Usher (2020) are:
{| class="wikitable sortable" ! gloss !! Proto-Musa River |- | head || *bo-tai |- | hair/feather || *idi |- | ear || *ome |- | eye || *nai-tai |- | nose || *iboʔo |- | tooth || *ni[ʔ]o |- | tongue || *meana |- | foot/leg || *buɾi |- | blood/salt || *iwa |- | bone || *tai |- | skin/bark || *ope |- | breast || *ama |- | louse || *uʔa |- | dog || *kua |- | pig || *boɾo |- | bird || *gasiɾa; *ada |- | egg || *baka; *uɾimi |- | tree || *ana |- | man/person || *e[ʔe]me |- | woman/wife || *aweta |- | sun || *eweaka |- | moon || *maɾabe; *sakaɾa |- | water || *adua |- | fire || *inaʔa |- | stone || *oma; *gebiɾo |- | path || *daʔaba |- | name || *ibi |- | eat/drink || *it- |- | one || *demu
Evolution Yareban reflexes of proto-Trans-New Guinea (pTNG) etyma are:
Yareba language: ama ‘breast’ < *amu ‘cassowary’ < *ku(y)a rarara ‘dry’ < *(ŋg,k)atata baba ‘father’ < *mbapa iji ‘hair’ < *iti[C] ifu ‘name’ < *imbi kofiti ‘head’ < *kV(mb,p)(i,u)tu ogo ‘water’ < *ok[V] eme ‘man’ < *ambi
Abia language: amai ‘mother’ < *am(a,i) sagai ‘sand’ < *sa(ŋg,k)asiŋ
References
External links Timothy Usher, New Guinea World, Owen Stanley Range (ibid.) Proto–Musa River