Tonda
West Morehead River
Geographic
distribution		Southern New Guinea
Linguistic classificationYam
  • Tonda
Glottologtond1250
Map: The Yam languages of New Guinea
  Yam languages
  Trans–New Guinea languages
  Other Papuan languages
  Austronesian languages
  Australian languages
  Uninhabited

The Tonda languages form a branch of the Yam language family of southern New Guinea. There are over 10 languages.[1]

Tonda languages share some areal features are shared with the Kolopom languages.[2]

Languages

The Tonda languages are:[1][3]

Tonda / West Morehead River

Notes (see Evans 2018: 681):

  • Each terminal bullet point lists a different dialect chain.
  • Ránmo is linguistically a dialect of Mblafe, but Ránmo speakers consider their language to be a separate, distinct language.
  • Wérè is linguistically a dialect of Wára, but Wèré speakers consider their language to be a separate, distinct language.

Numeral typology

Tonda languages are unique for their base-6 numeral systems, which likely originated from counting yams (rather than fingers or body parts as with most other languages).[2]

References

  1. 1 2 Evans, Nicholas (2018). "The languages of Southern New Guinea". In Palmer, Bill (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide. The World of Linguistics. Vol. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 641–774. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.
  2. 1 2 Hammarström, Harald. (2009) Whence the Kanum Base-6 Numeral System?. Linguistic Typology 13(2). 305-319.
  3. ↑ West Morehead River
  • Evans, Nicholas (2018). "The languages of Southern New Guinea". In Palmer, Bill (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide. The World of Linguistics. Vol. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 641–774. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.

Further reading

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