| VII. LANGUAGES IN THE WORLD AND IN PAPUA References: Dyen (1978), Dictionary.com , Gleason (1961), Dyen (1978), Wurm (1976), Foley (1986), Encyclopedia.com, Capel (1969) Based on the Foundation of Endangered Languages there are about seven thousand two hundred and thirty seven living languages in the world (Dictionary.com, 2002). The countries that have many languages are Indonesia (694), Papua New Guinea (673), Nigeria (455), and India (337). The world languages are divided into some big classifications, among others: Indo European, Afro-Asiatic, Sino-Tibetan, Austronesian, Dravidian, Indian (in America), Chari- Nile, etc. The Indo European covers the Germanic (English, Dutch, Scandinavian), the Romance (French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian), the Indian (Asia), the Iranian, etc. (Gleason, 1961). The Malayo Polynesian, later termed as Austronesian (AN), which spreads from the Pacific to Madagaskar is the second most widespread of all languages (Gleason, 1961). According to Foley (1986) one third of the world languages are found in the Pacific basin, and excluding the languages in mainland Asia and America, it has more or less 1500 languages which can be grouped into three: Australian which has been going down from two hundred to one hundred now, Autronesian consisting of 600 languages, and Papuan (Non Austronesian) consisting of 750 languages. The Non Austronesian languages (NAN) are spoken in Irian Jaya, Papua New Guinea, North Halmahera, Alor, Pantar, and East Timor. The Austronesian languages are divided into Western Austronesian and eastern Austronesian, and Eastern AN can be divided into three: Micronesian, Melanesian, and Polinesian. Dyen gave another name for Wetern AN as Hesperonesian, which is sometimes called Indonesian. The Eastern AN is also called Oceanic. Those belonging to Western AN are: Sumatera, Java, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Malay Peninsula, the Philippines, Taiwan, and other islands between Madagaskar (Malagasy) in the west and Guam ( Chamorro) in the east; and those belonging to Microneisa are Mariana island, Guam, Gilbert island, Nauru, and the islands near by; those belonging to Melanesian are New Guinea, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Tuvalu, the Bismarck Archipelago, the Admiralty Islands, and the other small islands near by (Biak, Wandamen, Waropen, Fijian, etc.); and those belonging to Polinesian are New Zealand, Vanuatu, Samoa, Tahiti, Hawaii, and Easter island (Hawaiian, Tahitian, Samoan, Maori) (Encyclopedia.com). The boundary of the Eastern AN is west of Roti in the south and west of Sula island in the north, including east of Celebes and the Banggai islands, and the Talaut and Sangir islands (Gleason, 1961; Dyen, 1978). According to Adriani Solorese in Flores also belong to Eastern AN (Dyen, 1978). The basis of the division was the difference of patterns of preposed genitive; in the Eastern it is attribute plus head, in Western it is head plus attribute e.g.: in Kisar: /manu keer/ �bird egg� bird egg in Malay /telor ayam/ �chiken egg� egg chiken Languages in Papua There are more or less 251 languages in the Province of Papua. The languaages are divided into two groups, they are Austronesian (49) and Non-Austronesian (202). Division of Papuan Languages Based on lexical, structural and typological criteria, Wurm (1982) divided the Non Autronesian into five major phyla and 6 minor phyla. The five major phyla are: 1) Trans New Guinea, 2) West Papuan, 3) Sepik Ramu, 4) Torricelli, and 5) East Papuan. The six minor phyla are: 1) Skow, 2) Kwomtari, 3) Arai, 4) Amto Musian, 5) Gelvink Bay, and 6) East Bird's Head. Of all the phyla, the Trans New Guinea has the largest area, since it covers nearly all the interior of Irian Jaya and Papua New Guinea. A half of this phylum is in Papua New Guinea and the other half is in Irian Jaya. Like Trans New Guinea, the western part of Skow phylum is also in Irian Jaya while the other part is in Papua New Guinea, and so is Kwomtari. The whole phyla of West Papuan, Gelvink Bay, and East Bird's Head are in Irian Jaya, and the whole phyla of Sepik Ramu, Torricelli, East Papuan, Arai, and Amto Musian are in Papua New Guinea. The Non Austronesian in Alor, Pantar, and East Timor belong to Trans New Guinea phylum and the one in east Halmahera belongs to East Bird's Head phylum. Wurm (1976:70) divides phyla to stocks, stocks to families, families to subfamilies, subfamilies to languages, and languages to dialects. The division is based on percentage of shared basic vocabulary items. The Trans New Guinea phylum for instance consists of 47 stocks (stock level families) including Timor Alor Pantar stock in the province of Nusa Tenggara Timur, the West Papuan Phylum consists of five stocks including Northern Halmahera stock level family in the province of Maluku. Division of Austronesian languages in New Guinea First Capel (1969) divided the Austronesian in Irian Jaya and Papua New Guinea into Austronesian 1 and Austronesian 2, the former were those with SOV word order and with the use of postposition, and the latter were those with SVO word order and with the use of preposition. But later on he changed the other way around; Austronesian-1 (AN1) are those with SVO and preposition and Austronesian-2 (AN2) are those with SOV and postposition (Capel, 1971). Then based on object dominated and event dominated he divided the AN1 into six groups and the AN2 into ten groups. Three groups of AN1 and one group of the AN2 are in Irian Jaya. The three groups of AN1, based on his map, are Northern Coast West group, Geelvink Bay group, and Bomberai Peninsula group. Unfortunately he did not include the languages that lies west of Bird's Head such as Salawati, Amber etc. Based on the map compiled by Silzer, the North Coast has 9 languages, the Geelvink Bay 19 languages, Bomberai 9 languages, those that lies west of Bird's Head 7 languages. The AN2 group in Irian Jaya, according to Capel (1971), consists of Tobati and Ormu. It turns out that Kayupulau and Kayubatu also belong to AN2 (Purba et al., 1990). The total number of Austronesian is around 48 languages, and the rest, more or less 202 languages are Papuan or Non Austronesian. |
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