The South Bird's Head or South Doberai languages are three families of Papuan languages. They form part of the Trans–New Guinea languages in the classifications of Malcolm Ross (2005) and Timothy Usher (2020), though Pawley and Hammarström (2018) do not consider them to be part of Trans–New Guinea. However, according to Dryer (2022), based on a preliminary quantitative analysis of data from the ASJP database, South Bird's Head languages are likely to be a subgroup of Trans–New Guinea.

Languages

The languages are as follows, Noting low cognacy rates, Holton and Klamer (2018) tentatively consider the following three language groups to each be independent language families, pending further evidence. Usher classifies the South Bird's Head languages as part of a wider Berau Gulf branch of Trans–New Guinea.

Pronouns

The pronouns are: !colspan=2| !!singular!!plural !rowspan=2|1st person !exclusive !inclusive !colspan=2|2nd person 3SG *ni is reconstructable for SBH proper. There appears to be both a plural vowel change from *a to *i, as in proto-TNG, and a plural suffix *-ri.

Cognates

Below are cognates in Nuclear South Bird's Head languages (Arandai, Kokoda, Kemberano, Kaburi, Kais, Puragi) demonstrating their relatedness, as listed by Holton & Klamer (2018): ! gloss !! Arandai !! Kokoda !! Kemberano !! Kaburi !! Kais !! Puragi South Bird's Head basic vocabulary quoted by Holton & Klamer (2018) from de Vries (2004), showing diverse non-cognate vocabulary across different language groups: ! gloss !! Yahadian !! Inanwatan !! Kokoda !! Puragi

Morphology

Except for the outlier languages Konda and Yahadian, all South Bird's Head languages have nouns classified according to masculine and feminine genders, which are determined with final vowel quality. West Bird's Head languages also mark nouns for gender.

Syntax

Unlike many other languages of the Bird's Head Peninsula which display SVO word order (such as Abun, Mpur, Maibrat, West Bird's Head, and others), the South Bird's Head languages have SOV word order.