Oksapmin is a Trans–New Guinea language spoken in Oksapmin Rural LLG, Telefomin District, Sandaun, Papua New Guinea. The two principal dialects are distinct enough to cause some problems with mutual intelligibility. Oksapmin has dyadic kinship terms and a body-part counting system that goes up to 27. Notable ethnographic research by Geoffrey B. Saxe at UC Berkeley has documented the encounter between pre-contact uses of number and its cultural evolution under conditions of monetization and exposure to schooling and the formal economy among the Oksapmin.

Classification

Oksapmin has been influenced by the Mountain Ok languages (the name "Oksapmin" is from Telefol), and the similarities with those languages were attributed to borrowing in the classifications of both Stephen Wurm (1975) and Malcolm Ross (2005), where Oksapmin was placed as an independent branch of Trans–New Guinea. Loughnane (2009) and Loughnane and Fedden (2011) conclude that it is related to the Ok languages, though those languages share innovative features not found in Oksapmin. Usher finds Oksapmin is not related to the Ok languages specifically, though it is related at some level to the southwestern branches of Trans–New Guinea.

Phonology

Vowels

There are six monophthongs,, and one diphthong,.

Consonants

Tone

Oksapmin contrasts two tones: high and low.