The Kiwaian languages form a language family of New Guinea. They are a dialect cluster of half a dozen closely related languages. They are grammatically divergent from the Trans–New Guinea languages, and typically have singular, dual, trial, and plural pronouns.

Classification

The Trans–New Guinea identity of Kiwaiian is supported by a relatively large number of basic lexical items. Ross (2005) tentatively linked Kiwaiian to the erstwhile language isolate Porome. However, the evidence is only two pronouns, and the connection has not been accepted by other researchers.

Languages

Kiwaian languages and respective demographic information listed by Evans (2018) are provided below. ! Language !! Location !! Population !! Alternate names

Proto-language

Phonemes

Usher (2020) reconstructs the consonant inventory as follows:

Pronouns

Usher (2020) reconstructs the pronouns as, ! !!sg!!pl !1 !2 !3

Basic vocabulary

Some lexical reconstructions by Usher (2020) are: ! gloss !! Proto-Kiwai

Evolution

Kiwaian reflexes of proto-Trans-New Guinea (pTNG) etyma are: Southern Kiwai language: Other languages: