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The Orya–Tor languages are a family of just over a dozen Papuan languages spoken in Western New Guinea, Indonesia.

Classification

The Tor family, named after the Tor River, is clearly established. Its closest relative appears to be Orya.

Stephen Wurm (1975) linked Orya and the Tor languages with the Lakes Plain languages, forming a branch of his Trans–New Guinea phylum. Clouse (1997) found no evidence of such a connection. Malcolm Ross (2005) linked them instead with part of another erstwhile branch of TNG in a Tor–Kwerba proposal, and Usher makes a broadly similar proposal. Glottolog accepts only the link with Orya as having been demonstrated.

Languages

Foley (2018)

Foley (2018) provides the following classification.

Foley considers the inclusion of Sause within the Tor family to be questionable due to insufficient lexical evidence. See Kapauri–Sause languages.

Usher (2020)

Timothy Usher provides the following classification:

Jofotek and Mander are found to be the same language, whereas the ISO conflation of Edwas and Bonerif is found to be spurious. A Wares language is not attested. (The Wares people are not known to have a distinct language, and the language of the village of Wares is Mawes.)

Proto-language

Phonemes

Usher (2020) reconstructs the consonant inventory tentatively as follows:

*m	*n
*p	*t	*s	*k	*kʷ
*b	*d	*dz		*gʷ
*w	*ɾ

The stop *d is marginal and only occurs initially. *ɾ does not occur initially.

*i		*u
*e		*o
*ɛ	*ə	*ɔ
	*a

Pronouns

The pronouns Ross reconstructs for proto-Orya–Tor are,

I	*ai	exclusive we	?
		inclusive we	*ne
thou	*emei	you	*em
s/he	*je	they	?

Usher (2020) reconstructs the pronouns of the East Tor Coast branch as:

East Tor Coast

	sg	pl
1excl	*ai/ana	*ai-saise (?)
1incl		*ne-saise (?)
2	*im	*im-saise
3	*dei	*dei-saise

Basic vocabulary

Some lexical reconstructions by Usher (2020) are:

gloss	Proto-Orya-Tor River	Proto-Tor River	Orya
head	*nəbaɾ	*nəbaɾ
leaf/hair	*aɾ	*aɾ	ala
eye	*nVwɛ	*nVwɛ	nwe
nose	*masɛ	*masɛ	mase
tongue	*mapəɾ	*mafəɾVm	mahal
foot/leg	*taəna	*taəna	tana
breast	*mo̝m	*mo̝m	mom
louse	*nɛna	*nɛna
dog	*gʷəɾa	*gʷəɾa
pig	*gʷas	*gʷas
bird	*dzu	*dzu
egg	*sw	*sw
tree/wood	*te̝	*te̝	te
woman/wife	*kʷe̝	*kʷe̝	we
moon	*pn	*fɛⁱn
water	*pɔ	*fɔ	ho
path	*nVɾ	*nVɾ
name	*bo̝s	*bo̝s	bose
one	*apa	*afa
two	*nawɛt	*nawɛt

References

1. Clouse, Duane A. (1997). Karl Franklin (ed.). "Towards a reconstruction and reclassification of the Lakes Plains languages of Irian Jaya". Papers in New Guinea Linguistics. 2: 133–236. ISSN 0078-9135. OCLC 2729642.
2. Hammarström, Harald; Forke, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2020). "Tor-Orya". Glottolog 4.3.
3. ^ Foley, William A. (2018). "The languages of Northwest New Guinea". 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. 433–568. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.
4. ^ New Guinea World, Orya–Tor River
5. Reported also in Hammarström (2015) Ethnologue 16/17/18th editions: a comprehensive review: online appendices

• 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. ISBN 0858835622. OCLC 67292782.

External links

• Timothy Usher, New Guinea World, Proto–Orya – Tor River

• Orya–Tor languages
• Foja Range languages