South Huon

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

The South Huon Peninsula family, also known as the Pindiu family, consists of at least four languages spoken south of the Cromwell range from the Bulum river valley in the west to beyond the Mongi river in the east and south to their confluence in Papua New Guinea's Morobe province. Suter's term Pindiu is the name of a town in the Borong language area for which the subdistrict is named (McElhanon 1967: 5-6, Suter 2018: 6, q.v. p. 4.)

The internal classification of South Huon Peninsula is as follows:

South Huon Peninsula

Bulum River

Borong

Somba-Siawari

Somba

Siawari

Mongi River

Dedua

North Dedua

South Dedua

Kube-Tobo

Tobo

Kube

Kurungtufu

Yoanggeng

Burum (Somba) and Mindik (Siawari) were treated as different languages in McElhanon (1967,) but are nowadays considered to be dialects of a single languge. According to Lee (1993: 10,) Tobo is a dialect of Kube with 95% cognacy over nearly 200 basic terms, much higher than McElhanon's (1967: 6-9) figure of 71.4% (below.) Thus a conservative tally would count four languages in the South Huon Peninsula family.

McElhanon (1967: 6-9) gives lexicostatistical figures between Kosorong (Borong,) Mindik (Siawari,) Burum (Somba), Dedua, Hube (Kube) and Tobo as follows:

We assume Dedua's figures to have been significantly depressed by loans from Kâte, which are pervasive enough to have moved Hooley and McElhanon (1970 :1069, 1070) to reclassify Dedua in the East Huon family (below.)

Pilhofer (1927-1928) comparative morphology for Dedua, Kube and Somba

Pilhofer (1928-1929) 290 comparative terms for Dedaue (Dedua,) Hube (Kube) and Bulum (Somba)

McElhanon (1967: 34-43) 140 comparative terms for Dedua, Hube (Kube,) Tobo, Kosorong (Borong,) Mindik (Siawari) and Burum (Somba)

McElhanon (1968) 1,501 comparative terms for Dedua, Kube-Yoangen, Kosorong, Tobo, Yakŋe (Siawari) and Burum

McElhanon and Voorhoeve (1970) 67 Trans New Guinea comparisons include examples from Kosorong, Burum, Mindik, Tobo, Kube and Dedua

McElhanon (2012) 2,110 comparative terms for Yakŋe, Burum, Kosorong, Tobo and Yoangen Kube

Olkkonen (1982) phonology of Burum (Somba)

Olkkonen and Olkkonen (1983) grammar of Burum (unobtained)

Olkkonen (1985) phonology of Burum

Olkkonen (1987) Somba-Siawari orthography (unobtained)

Olkkonen (1990) Somba-Siawari clitics

Olkkonen (1994) sketch phonology of Mindik

Olkkonen (2000) phonology of Borong

Olkkonen and Olkkonen (2000) grammar of Borong

Olkkonen (2001) sketch phonology of Borong

Olkkonen and Olkkonen (2003) dictionary of Somba-Siawari (unobtained)

Olkkonen and Olkkonen (2004) dictionary of Burum-Mindik

Olkkonen and Olkkonen (2007) dictionary of Somba-Siawari

Smith (1988) Morobe counting systems (unobtained)

Ceder and Ceder (1988) grammar of Dedua (unobtained)

Ceder and Ceder (1989) dictionary of Dedua (unobtained)

Ceder and Ceder (1990) grammar of Dedua (unobtained)

Ceder and Ceder (1990) orthography of Dedua (unobtained)

Ceder and Ceder (2003) sketch phonology of Dedua

Ceder and Ceder (n.d.) dialect survey of Dedua (unobtained)…

Lee (1993) grammar of Kube

Lee (n.d.) dictionary of Mongi (unobtained)

Gasaway (1997) Burum morphophomenics

Blake (2000) Dedua participants

Blake (2000) Dedua clitics (unobtained)

Mankins (2012) grammar of Tobo (unobtained)

Mankins (n.d.) dictionary of Tobo (unobtained)

Suter (2018) comparative Pindiu grammar including (pp. 43-51) Pindiu object-marking verbs and (pp. 182-188) Pindiu desinences

The South Huon Peninsula family was first established in its current form as the Central Family of the North-Central Huon Stock by McElhanon (1967: 6-9.) The placement of Dedua was acknowledged as problematic, with Dedua shown in the descent tree as intermediate between Hube (Kube) and Kâte in the Eastern Family of the East Huon Stock (i.e. Kâte,and Mape,) though the text correctly states that “The Dedua language is more closely related to the Central Huon Family than it is to the Eastern Huon Family.”

Hooley and McElhanon 1970: 1069-1070) moved Deduai into the Eastern Family which had been expanded to include also Sene, Migabac and Momare. Some confusion about the concept of genetic relatedness is evident as they write, “The southern dialect is more closely related to Kate and the northern dialect to Ono .A couple of villages at the watershed of the coastal range show closer relationship to theYoangen dialect of the Hube language in the Central Family.” A clue to the source of the confusion is provided as they state that younger Dedua speakers freely mix Kâte words with Dedua.

An attempt to resolve the seeming contradictions led to further damage as McElhanon (1975: 521, 529) then moved Kube into the Eastern Family along with Dedua, characterizing both as “mixed languages which share typological features with l anguages of both Huon Peninsula families,” though emphasizing that their placement was provisional. Meanwhile, Tobo, Yaknge (Siawari,) Kosorong (Borong) and Burum (Somba) were presented alongside the languages of other Western Huon families in an undifferentiated mass. McElhanon (1984: 15) went still further by moving Kosorong as well into the Eastern Family, presumably due to its clear reltionship to Dedua and Kube.

Suter (2018: 2, 5, 6) restores Dedua, Kube and Borong to their rightful places in the Pondiu (i.e. South Huon Peninsula) subgroup, which he considers to be immediately coordinate to the Sankwep family (i.e. Southwest Huon Peninsula) in a Rawlinson subgroup of Wetern Huon.

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