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.^{[ citation needed]}

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. ^[1]

Classification

According to Lynch, Ross, & Crowley (2002), the structure of the family is as follows: ^[2]

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

Proto-Huon Gulf

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		* m ʷ	* m	* n	* ɲ	* ŋ
Fricative		* v		* s		* ɣ
Approximant		* w		* l, * r	* j		* ʀ

References

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