Birth-Order Term Borrowing as Evidence for Historical Interaction Patterns in the Saruwaged Mountains of Papua New Guinea

Abstract

Austronesian languages of the Markham River valley and neighbouring Papuan languages feature birth-order term systems with up to sixteen members. All Papuan languages on the opposite side of the Saruwaged Mountains from the Markham River valley lack birth-order term systems, except the dialect of Nungon spoken in a single village, Kotet, in the Uruwa River valley. The birth-order terms of Kotet village are clearly cognate with those of Papuan and Austronesian languages on the other side of the mountain range; no other Nungon dialects contain birth-order term systems. Besides the birth-order terms, the Kotet lexicon shows little evidence of borrowing from southern languages. Every Papuan language in the region shows different forms, repetitions within systems, and ordering of the birth-order terms, making their trajectory to Kotet village hard to track. Birth-order term systems are a uniquely diffusable, and mutable, lexical category in this part of the Huon Peninsula, Papua New Guinea. Show more