Lower Ramu River

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

Situation

The Lower Ramu River family consists of of eight languages spoken around and inland of the mouth of the Ramu River on the north coast of the Bogia subdistrict of Papua New Guinea's Madang province (Z'graggen 1971: 74-79.) At least one of its members, Watam, is also spoken immediately across the border to the west in East Sepik province. It is called the Ruboni Stock in the works of Z'graggen, who first recognized the unity of the family.

Subclassification

The internal classification of Lower Ramu River is as follows:

Lower Ramu River

Ruboni Range

Kire (Giri)

Sepen

Mikarew

Ramu Coast

East Ramu Coast

Awar

Bosngun

North Ramu Coast

Boroi (Gamei)

Kaian

Watam

Z'graggen (1971: 78-79) gives lexicostatistical relationships between languages of the Ruboni Stock as follows:

Giri Sepen Mikarew Awar Bosngun Gamei Kaian Watam
Giri 60 42 22 19 19 16 18
Sepen 60 60 18 18 16 15 17
Mikarew 42 60 15 14 12 14 16
Awar 22 18 15 63 41 39 38
Bosngun 19 18 14 63 45 42 42
Gamei 19 16 12 41 45 77 72
Kaian 16 15 14 39 42 77 77
Watam 18 17 16 38 41 72 77

Sources

[under construction]

Historical phonology

[under construction]



Lower RamuRamu CoastRuboni Range

Pronouns

[under construction]

Lower RamuRamu CoastRuboni Range
1 sg.*…
2 sg.*…
3 sg.*…
1 pl.*…
2 pl.*…
3 pl.*…
1 dl.*…
2 dl.*…
3 dl.*…

Loans from Bogia Bay

[under construction]

Bogia BayRamu CoastRuboni Range
louse
mosquito
cassowary