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Mantion–Meax Mantion–Meyah
East Bird's Head
Geographic distribution	Papua
Linguistic classification	West Papuan? (extended) East Bird's Head Mantion–Meax Mantion–Meyah
Subdivisions	Mantion Meyah
Language codes
Glottolog	east1459
East Bird's Head languages (in red)

The Mantion–Meax, Mantion–Meyah, or (South) East Bird's Head languages are a language family of three languages in the "Bird's Head Peninsula" of western New Guinea, spoken by all together 20,000 people.

Classification

East Bird's Head stock (3 languages)

• Mantion (Manikion, Sougb)
• Meyah family: Meyah (Meax), Meninggo (Moskona)

Pronouns

The pronouns Ross reconstructs for the proto-language (Usher's Southeast Bird's Head) are:

	Number
Person	Singular	Plural
		exclusive	inclusive
1st	*da, *di-	*meme, *me-	*mimi, *mi-
2nd	*ba, *bi-	*ia, *i-
3rd	*e, *-	*rua, *ri-

Basic vocabulary

Basic vocabulary among East Bird's Head languages (Meyah, Moskona, Sougb, Hatam, Mansim) listed in Holton & Klamer (2018). The sets are not necessarily cognate.

East Bird's Head family basic vocabulary

gloss	Meyah	Moskona	Sougb	Hatam	Mansim
‘bird’	mem	mem	ba	hab	waw
‘louse’	mej	mej	mem	mem
‘one’	egens	erges	hom	gom	wom
‘night’	motu	mot	loba	mmun
‘I’	didif	dif	dan	dani	danu

Additional East Bird's Head basic vocabulary quoted by Holton & Klamer (2018) from Miedema & Reesink (2004: 34) and (Reesink 2005: 202), showing diverse non-cognate vocabulary across different branches:

Additional East Bird's Head basic vocabulary

gloss	Meyah	Moskona	Sougb	Hatam
arm/hand	etma	etma	s(i)ra	ndab
leg/foot	aki	egak/oko	ohora	mig
house	mod	mod	tu	ig
good	oufa	ojfa	eigouh	kei
dog	mes	mes	mihi	nsien
pig	mek	mek	hwej	nab
chicken	mongkukar	memkoar	berougb	guri
louse	mej	mej	mem	mem
water/river	mei	mij	uhu	nyei
banana		meni	nej	wida

See also

• Hatam–Mansim languages
• West Papuan languages

References

1. ^ Holton, Gary; Klamer, Marian (2018). "The Papuan languages of East Nusantara and the Bird's Head". In Palmer, Bill (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide. The World of Linguistics. Vol. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 569–640. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.
2. Miedema, Jelle and Ger P. Reesink. 2004. One Head, Many Faces: New perspectives on the Bird’s Head Peninsula of New Guinea. Leiden: KITLV.
3. Reesink, Ger P. 2005. West Papuan languages: roots and development. In: Pawley et al. (eds.) 185–218.

Further reading

• Reesink, Ger P. (2002). "The Eastern Bird's Head Languages Compared". In Ger P. Reesink (ed.). Languages of the Eastern Bird's Head. Pacific Linguistics. Vol. 524. Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University. pp. 1–44. hdl:1885/146144.

External links

• East Bird's Head languages database at TransNewGuinea.org

• Mantion–Meax languages
• Languages of Indonesia
• East Bird's Head languages
• Western New Guinea