The Madang or Madang–Adelbert Range languages are a
language family of
Papua New Guinea. They were classified as a branch of
Trans–New Guinea by
Stephen Wurm, followed by
Malcolm Ross.
William A. Foley concurs that it is "highly likely" that the Madang languages are part of TNG, although the pronouns, the usual basis for classification in TNG, have been "replaced" in Madang. Timothy Usher finds that Madang is closest to the
Upper Yuat River languages and other families to its west, but does not for now address whether this larger group forms part of the TNG family.[1]
Sidney Herbert Ray identified the Rai Coast family in 1919. In 1951 these were linked with the Mabuso languages by
Arthur Capell to create his Madang family.
John Z'graggen (1971, 1975) expanded Madang to languages of the Adelbert Range and renamed the family Madang–Adelbert Range, and
Stephen Wurm (1975)[2] adopted this as a branch of his Trans–New Guinea phylum. For the most part,
Malcolm Ross's (2005) Madang family includes the same languages as Z'graggen Madang–Adelbert Range, but the internal classification is different in several respects, such as the dissolution of the
Brahman branch.
These are not the common TNG pronouns. However, Ross postulates that the TNG dual suffixes *-le and *-t remain, and suggests that the TNG pronouns live on as
Kalam verbal suffixes.
^
abPawley, Andrew; Hammarström, Harald (2018). "The Trans New Guinea family". 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. 21–196.
ISBN978-3-11-028642-7.
Ross, Malcolm (2005). "Pronouns as a preliminary diagnostic for grouping Papuan languages". In
Andrew Pawley; Robert Attenborough; Robin Hide; Jack Golson (eds.). Papuan pasts: cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. pp. 15–66.
ISBN0858835622.
OCLC67292782.
Pawley, Ross, & Osmond, 2005. Papuan languages and the Trans New Guinea phylum. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. pp. 38–51.
CLDF Dataset
Z'graggen, J A. (1980) A comparative word list of the Northern Adelbert Range Languages, Madang Province, Papua New Guinea. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. (CLDF dataset on Zenodo
doi:
10.5281/zenodo.3537580)