The Engan languages, or more precisely Enga–Kewa–Huli or Enga – Southern Highland, are a small family of Papuan languages of the highlands of Papua New Guinea. The two branches of the family are rather distantly related, but were connected by Franklin and Voorhoeve (1973).

Name

The name "Engan" is often restricted to the northern branch of the family, to those languages transparently related to Enga, but also sometimes to the family as a whole.

Languages

The languages fall into three quite distinct branches: Engan proper, Huli, and Southern Highlands:

Classification

The Engan family constitutes a branch of the Trans–New Guinea languages in the classifications of Wurm and of Malcolm Ross, but the evidence for this is weak. Usher links the Engan and Chimbu languages in a Central New Guinea Highlands family. There are a considerable number of resemblances with Wiru. Borrowing has not been ruled out as the reason for this, though the pronouns are similar as well.

Proto-language

Phonemes

Usher (2020) reconstructs the consonant inventory as follows: Vowels are *i *e *a *o *u.

Pronouns

Pronouns are easy to reconstruct for the northern and southern branches, but much more difficult for Engan as a whole. Ross (2005) has the following for the singular, Wiru has been added for comparison: ! !!pEngan!!N Engan!!S Engan!!Wiru !1 !2 !3 Usher (2020) has not yet published reconstruction of Engan as a whole, but has done Engan proper: ! !!sg!!du!!pl !1 !2 !3

Vocabulary

Some lexical reconstructions of Proto-Trans Enga (Proto-Engan) by Usher (2020) are: ! gloss !! Proto-Trans-Enga !! Proto-Southern Highlands !! Huli ! name ! fire/tree ! moon ! four ! path ! stand ! cassowary ! skin

Modern reflexes

The Enga-Kewa-Huli reflexes of proto-Trans-New Guinea (pTNG) etyma, if Engan languages are indeed members of the Trans-New Guinea family, are: Enga: Huli: Kewa: Mendi:

Basic vocabulary

Basic vocabulary of Enga and Kewa from William A. Foley (1986). The pairs of words are not necessarily cognate. ! gloss !! Enga !! Kewa