Foja Range languages
Language family of New Guinea
title: "Foja Range languages" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["foja-range-languages", "northwest-papuan-languages", "language-families"] description: "Language family of New Guinea" topic_path: "linguistics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foja_Range_languages" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Language family of New Guinea ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox language family"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | Foja Range |
| acceptance | Tor–Kwerba |
| region | New Guinea |
| familycolor | Papuan |
| fam1 | Northwest Papuan? |
| child1 | Orya–Tor |
| child2 | Greater Kwerba |
| child3 | Nimboran |
| child4 | Mawes |
| glotto | none |
| :: |
|name=Foja Range |acceptance=Tor–Kwerba |region=New Guinea |familycolor=Papuan |fam1=Northwest Papuan? |child1=Orya–Tor |child2=Greater Kwerba |child3=Nimboran |child4=Mawes |glotto=none
The Foja Range languages, or Tor–Kwerba in more limited scope, are a family of about two dozen Papuan languages. They are named after the Foja Mountains of western New Guinea.
Languages
All the languages had been part of Stephen Wurm's 1975 Trans–New Guinea proposal, but he did not recognize them as a unit, retaining Kwerba within Capell's 1962 Dani–Kwerba proposal, for example. Foley (2018) classifies the Orya–Tor and Kwerbic languages together, as Tor–Kwerba. Usher (2020) adds Nimboran and Mawes, naming the expanded family Foja Range, after the Foja mountain range that passes through all four branches of the family.
- Foja Range
- Orya–Tor
- Nimboran
- Mawes
- West Foja Range (Greater Kwerbic)
- Isirawa
- Masep
- Kapauri–Sause
- Apauwar–Kwerba (Kwerbic)
Typological overview
Even though grammatical gender is present in Tor-Kwerba languages, there is no overt gender marking on nouns.
Pronouns
Reconstructed proto-Tor-Kwerba independent pronouns are:
:{| |+ Proto-Tor-Kwerba independent pronouns ! !! sg !! pl |- ! 1 | *ati ~ *ait|| *ne(n) |- ! 2 | *ame|| *ame |}
Cognates
Reconstructed proto-Tor-Kwerba words that are widely distributed throughout the family (Foley 2018):
- *nukwe 'eye'
- *tVn 'leg'
- *nen 'louse'
- *uŋis 'sky'
- *ti ~ *it 'tree'
References
References
- "Foja" is the Dutch spelling, often rendered "Foya" in English, so one might expect that in modern [[Indonesian orthography]] it would be "Foya" as well. However, the Indonesian spelling remains "Foja", as it was before the [[Republican Spelling System. spelling reform]]. Thus the "j" may be pronounced as either an English "y" or an English "j".
- "New Guinea World".
- Foley, William A.. (2018). "The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide". De Gruyter Mouton.
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