Senagi languages

The Senagi languages are a small family of Papuan languages in the classification of Malcolm Ross, that had been part of Stephen Wurm's Trans–New Guinea proposal. They consist of the two languages Angor and Dera.

Senagi
Geographic
distribution		New Guinea (Papua New Guinea and Indonesia)
Linguistic classificationan independent language family
Subdivisions
Glottologsena1264

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.

In Papua New Guinea, they are spoken in Amanab Rural LLG of Sandaun Province. They are also spoken across the border in Keerom Regency, Indonesia.[1][2]

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.

Pronouns

Pronouns are:[3]

Senagi pronouns
AngorDera
1incl ro
1excl səhyo
2 sesi
3 aiai

Grammar

Verbal morphology in Senagi languages is highly complex and irregular.[3]

References
  1. Eberhard, David M.; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D., eds. (2019). "Papua New Guinea languages". Ethnologue: Languages of the World (22nd ed.). Dallas: SIL International.
  2. United Nations in Papua New Guinea (2018). "Papua New Guinea Village Coordinates Lookup". Humanitarian Data Exchange. 1.31.9.
  3. Foley, William A. (2018). "The Languages of the Sepik-Ramu Basin and Environs". In Palmer, Bill (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide. The World of Linguistics. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 197–432. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.
  • 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.
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