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Papua New Guinea, a sovereign state in Oceania, is the most linguistically diverse country in the world. [5] According to Ethnologue, there are 839 living languages spoken in the country. [6] In 2006, Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare stated that "Papua New Guinea has 832 living languages (languages, not dialects)." [7] [8]
The languages that are neither Austronesian nor Australian are considered Papuan languages; this is a geographical rather than linguistic demarcation. [1] Of the Papuan languages, the largest linguistic grouping is considered to be Trans-New Guinean , with between 300 and 500 languages likely belonging to the group in addition to a huge variety ...
Principal language families of the world (and in some cases geographic groups of families). For greater detail, see Distribution of languages in the world. This is a list of languages by total number of speakers. It is difficult to define what constitutes a language as opposed to a dialect.
The "Papuan languages" are a strictly geographical grouping, and does not imply a genetic relationship. The concept of Papuan (non-Austronesian) speaking Melanesians as distinct from Austronesian-speaking Melanesians was first suggested and named by Sidney Herbert Ray in 1892. [2] In accordance with William A. Foley (1986):
Papuan-speaking peoples – Papuan peoples who speak the Papuan languages (the mutually unrelated, non-Austronesian language families), numbering about 7 million in population, and mostly reside on the island of New Guinea and a few of the smaller islands of Melanesia located off the northeast coast of New Guinea. [44]
The Kaluli are a clan of indigenous peoples who live in the rain forests of the Great Papuan Plateau in Papua New Guinea.The Kaluli, who numbered approximately 2,000 people in 1987, are the most numerous and well documented by post-contact ethnographers and missionaries among the four language-clans of Bosavi kalu ("men or people of Bosavi") that speak non-Austronesian languages.
They speak mainly Huli and Tok Pisin; many also speak some of the surrounding languages, and some also speak English. They are one of the largest cultural groups in Papua New Guinea, numbering over 250,000 people (based on the population of Hela of 249,449 at the time of the 2011 national census).
Most TNG languages are spoken by only a few thousand people, with only seven (Melpa, Kuman, Enga, Huli, Western Dani, Makasae, and Ekari) being spoken by more than 100,000. [4] The most populous language outside of mainland New Guinea is Makasae of East Timor , with 100,000 speakers throughout the eastern part of the country.