Massep language

Massep
Wotaf
Native to Indonesia
Region Papua
Ethnicity 85 (2000)[1][2]
Native speakers
 25 (2000)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3 mvs
Glottolog mass1263[3]

Massep (Masep, Potafa, Wotaf) is a poorly documented Papuan language spoken by fewer than 50 people in a single village. Despite the small number of speakers, however, language use is vigorous.

Donohue and colleagues (2002) conclude that it definitely is not a Kwerba language,[4] as it had been classified by Wurm (1975). They did not notice connections to any other language family.

Ethnologue and Glottolog list it as a language isolate,[1][3] but it has not been included in wider surveys, such as Ross (2005). The pronouns are not dissimilar from those of Trans–New Guinea languages, but Massep is geographically distant from that family.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Massep at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. ↑ Massep language at Ethnologue (15th ed., 2005)
  3. 1 2 Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Massep". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  4. ↑ Clouse, Duane; Donohue, Mark; Ma, Felix (2002). "Survey Report of the North Coast of Irian Jaya" (PDF). SIL. Retrieved 2018-07-23.
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