Yareban languages
# Yareban languages

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:

    *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:

    sgdupl 1excl *na*ewa 1incl *uwa*i[j]a 2 *a*ja 3 *dawa*ema(wa)

### Basic vocabulary

Some lexical reconstructions by Usher (2020) are:

    glossProto-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
* uyau ‘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
