The Dani or Baliem Valley languages are a family of clearly related Trans–New Guinea languages spoken by the Dani and related peoples in the Baliem Valley in the Highland Papua, Indonesia. Foley (2003) considers their Trans–New Guinea language group status to be established. They may be most closely related to the languages of Paniai Lakes, but this is not yet clear. Capell (1962) posited that their closest relatives were the Kwerba languages, which Ross (2005) rejects.

Languages

Larson (1977) divided the family into three branches based on lexicostatistics, and Nggem was later added as a fourth. The Ngalik languages are very poorly attested.

Phonemes

Usher (2020) reconstructs the consonant inventory as follows. This is identical to the reconstruction of Bromley (1966-1967) apart from adding the rare consonants *pw, *mbw, and the possible additional vowel *ɐ. And the diphthongs *ei, *ou, *ai, *au.

Pronouns

Ross (1995) reconstructs the independent pronouns and possessive/object prefixes of Central Dani as: ! !!singular!!plural !1 !2 !3

Vocabulary comparison

The following basic vocabulary words are from Bromley (1967) and Voorhoeve (1975), as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database. The words cited constitute translation equivalents, whether they are cognate (e.g. nakapak, ogobak, nokopak for “nose”) or not (e.g. natði, nemake, nabilikagen for “tongue”).

Evolution

Dani reflexes of proto-Trans-New Guinea (pTNG) etyma are: Grand Valley Dani language: Western Dani language: Ngalik language: