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The Huon Gulf languages are Western Oceanic languages spoken primarily in Morobe Province of Papua New Guinea. They may form a group of the North New Guinea languages, perhaps within the Ngero–Vitiaz branch of that family.

Unusually for Oceanic languages, two North Huon Gulf languages, Bukawa and Yabem, are tonal. The only other tonal Oceanic languages are found in New Caledonia.

Classification

According to Lynch, Ross, & Crowley (2002), the structure of the family is as follows:

• North Huon Gulf linkage
• Markham family
• South Huon Gulf linkage
• Numbami

Proto-language

Proto-Huon Gulf was reconstructed by Malcolm Ross in 1988 in Proto-Oceanic and the Austronesian Languages of Western Melanesia. It is reconstructed on the basis of shared phonological, morphosyntactic and lexicosemantic innovations relative to Proto-Oceanic, such as the pervasive lenition of Proto-Oceanic *p to *v, the acquisition of a final *-c in some words, the idiosyncratic change of Proto-Oceanic *boRok 'pig' to Proto-Huon Gulf *boR, and the loss of all verb-deriving prefixes such as *pa- 'causative', *paRi- 'reciprocal', *ma- 'stative', and *ta- 'intransitive'.

Vowels

The vowels of Proto-Huon Gulf, according to Ross, are:

Consonants

The consonants of Proto-Huon Gulf, according to Ross, are:

Consonants

		Labiovelar	Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular
Stop	voiced		*b	*d	*ɟ	*g
	voiceless		*p	*t	*c	*k
Nasal		*mʷ	*m	*n	*ɲ	*ŋ
Fricative		*v		*s		*ɣ
Approximant		*w		*l, *r	*j		*ʀ

References

1. Blust, Robert (2013). The Austronesian languages. Vol. A-PL 008 (revised ed.). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. hdl:1885/10191. ISBN 9781922185075.
2. Lynch, John, Malcolm Ross & Terry Crowley. 2002. The Oceanic languages. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press.

• Ross, Malcolm (1988). Proto Oceanic and the Austronesian languages of western Melanesia. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.

• Huon Gulf languages
• North New Guinea languages
• Languages of Morobe Province