The West Papuan languages are a hypothetical language family of about two dozen languages of the "Bird's Head" (Vogelkopf) Peninsula of far western New Guinea and the island of Halmahera, spoken by about 220 000 people in all. The most populous and best known West Papuan language is Ternate (50 000 native speakers), which is a regional lingua franca and which, along with Tidore, were the languages of the rival medieval Ternate and Tidore kingdoms of the spice trade. Current distribution of Human Language Families Most languages are known to belong to language families. ... Halmahera (also Jilolo or Gilolo) is the largest island in the Maluku Islands. ... Lingua franca, literally Frankish language in Italian, was originally a mixed language consisting largely of Italian plus a vocabulary drawn from Turkish, Persian, French, Greek and Arabic and used for communication throughout the Middle East. ... A 1720 depiction of Ternate. ... Tidore is an island and town in the Maluku Islands of eastern Indonesia, just west of the larger island of Halmahera. ... Spices at the central market of Agadir, Morocco in May 2005 The spice trade has been of major economic importance throughout human history and it particularly helped spur the Age of Exploration. ...

The German linguist Wilhelm Schmidt first linked the Bird's Head and Halmahera languages in the year 1900. In 1957 HKL Cowan linked these to the non-Austronesian languages of Timor as well. Stephen Würm believed that although traces of West Papuan languages were to be found in the languages of Timor, as well as those of Aru and other areas, nonetheless these languages should classified as Trans-New Guinea and Austronesian, respectively. Wilhelm Schmidt (1868-1954) was a German linguist, anthropologist, and ethnologist. ... 1900 (MCM) is a common year starting on Monday. ... 1957 (MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Map of Timor Timor Island from space, November 1989 (North is to the bottom of the image). ... ARU may mean: American Railway Union Australian Rugby Union The National Rail code for Arundel railway station, United Kingdom. ... Trans-New Guinea is a family of languages spoken mainly in Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. ... The Austronesian languages are a family of languages widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia. ...

The classification used here is based on Würm. He identifies the subdivisions of his Papuan classification as families (on the order of the Germanic languages), stocks (on the order of the Indo-European languages), and phyla (on the order of the Nostratic hypothesis). West Papuan is a phylum in this terminology. The Germanic languages form one of the branches of the Indo-European (IE) language family. ... The Indo-European languages include some 443 (SIL estimate) languages and dialects, including most of the major language families of Europe, as well as many languages of Southwest and South Asia, which belong to a single superfamily. ... Nostratic is a highly controversial language super-family that putatively links many Eurasian language families. ...

Classification

West Papuan phylum

• Mpur (Amberbaken) isolate
• Hattam (Borai) isolate
• Northern Halmahera family
  • Southern branch: Ternate, Tidore
  • Northern branch: Galela, Laba, Loloda, Kao, Modele, Pagu, Gamkonora, Ibu, Sahu, Waioli, Tabaru, West Makian
• Bird's Head superstock
  • West Bird's Head family: Kuwani, Tehit, Kalabra, Seget, Moi Bird's Head language, Moraid
  • North-Central Bird's Head stock
    • North Bird's Head family: Abun Tat, Abun Ji, Abun Je
    • Central Bird's Head family: Karon Dori, Mai Brat

See also

• Papuan languages