The Teberan languages are a well established family of Papuan languages that Stephen Wurm (1975) grouped with the Pawaia language as a branch of the Trans–New Guinea phylum. There are two Teberan languages, Dadibi and Folopa (Podopa). They are spoken in Southern Highlands Province and in adjoining provinces.

Classification

Malcolm Ross (2005) tentatively retains both Teberan and Pawaia within TNG, but sees no other connection between them. Noting insufficient evidence, Pawley and Hammarström (2018) tentatively leave Teberan as unclassified rather than as part of Trans-New Guinea. Pawley and Hammarström (2018) do not consider there to be sufficient evidence for Teberan to be classified as part of Trans-New Guinea, though they do note the following lexical resemblances between the Teberan languages and proto-Trans-New Guinea. Dadibi: Folopa: According to Dryer (2022), based on a preliminary quantitative analysis of data from the ASJP database, Teberan is likely to be a subgroup of Trans–New Guinea.

Vocabulary comparison

Some lexical reconstructions by Usher (2020) are: ! gloss !! Proto-Dadibi-Folopa !! Dadibi !! Folopa ! head ! hair/feather ! ear/hear ! eye ! nose ! tongue ! bone ! skin/bark ! breast ! dog ! pig ! bird ! egg/seed ! tree/wood ! woman/female ! sun/day ! water ! fire/sun ! path/door ! eat/drink ! one/another