West Bomberai languages

Two of the languages of the mainland, Baham and Iha, are closely related to each other; the third is distant, forming a third branch of the family along with the Timor–Alor–Pantar languages:[1]

• Mbahaam–Iha: Baham (Mbaham), Iha
• Karas
• Timor–Alor–Pantar

Ross (2005) classified Timor–Alor–Pantar with the mainland West Bomberai languages, although this connection is not universally accepted. Usher found that the Timor–Alor–Pantar languages resides within the West Bomberai languages, and is not just their closest relative. This suggests that Timor–Alor–Pantar may have been the result of a relatively recent migration from New Guinea, perhaps arriving in the Timor area shortly before the Austronesian languages did.

Ross (2005) classifies Timor–Alor–Pantar with the West Bomberai languages, the two groups forming a branch within West Trans–New Guinea. Based on a careful examination of new lexical data, Holton & Robinson (2014) find little evidence to support a connection between TAP and TNG.[2] However, Holton & Robinson (2017) concede that a relationship with Trans-New Guinea and West Bomberai in particular is the most likely hypothesis, though they prefer to leave it unclassified for now.[3] Usher (2020) finds that the two mainland branches of the family are no closer to each other than they are to the Timor–Alor–Pantar languages, and has begun to reconstruct the West Bomberai protolanguage.[1]

Usher (2020) reconstructs the consonant and vowel inventories as:[1]

Prenasalized plosives do not occur initially, having merged with the voiceless plosives.

The vowels are *i *u *e *o *a *ɒ and the diphthong *ai.

Usher (2020) reconstructs the free pronouns as:[1]

	sg	pl
1excl	*[a/o]n	*in
1incl		*pi (?)
2	*k[a/o]	*ki

Protoforms of the 40 most-stable items[4] in the Swadesh list include the following.[1]

Proto–West Bomberai	gloss
*am[i/u]n	louse
*kira	water
*kʷali	ear
*k[i/u]m[i/u]	die
*[a/o]n	I
*kina	eye
*tana	hand/arm
*nai	name
*war	stone
*ami	breast
*k[a/o]	you
*[ja]ŋgal	path
?	tongue (*maŋg[a] voice/speech)
*aŋgin	body/skin
*kaja	rain
*waik	blood
*ukʷan[i]	one
*ma	come
*tVmber	mountain
*ni-	we
*na[wa]	eat/drink
*kena[t]	see
*kʷel[e]	skin/bark
*jambar	dog

The following basic vocabulary words are from Voorhoeve (1975),[5] as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:[6]

gloss	Baham	Iha
head	kendo-wame	kanda
hair	tawe	kandaːtən
eye	ki-ep	kendep
tooth	sin-tap	mihin-tap
leg	kueit	kowk
louse	min	mən
dog	yambar	mbiar
pig	kundur	ndur
bird	paru-baru	je
egg	un	wund
blood	wiek	wek
bone	ntoxar	togar
skin	pak	ŋein
tree	ado-kwiria	adoːp
man	namia	nemeːr
sun	kamini	kimina
water	kirya	kra
fire	yambur	toom
stone	war	war
name	nie	ne
eat	nowa	nəw-
one	ogono	kwo
two	-rik	(he)rik

The following lexical data comparing West Bomberai with other languages of the Bomberai Peninsula and Geelvink Bay is from the Trans-New Guinea database[7] and Usher (2020),[8] unless noted otherwise.

• Timothy Usher, New Guinea World, Proto–West Bomberai