The Torricelli Mountains are a mountain range in Sandaun Province , north-western Papua New Guinea . The highest peak in the range is Mount Sulen at 1650 meters. The Bewani Mountains are located to the west, and the Prince Alexander Mountains are located to the east. To the north, the mountains slope down to the Pacific Ocean , and to the south lies the basin of the Sepik River . The mountains are named after the Italian physicist and mathematician Evangelista Torricelli during the German colonial period.
18-473: Dozens of Torricelli languages are spoken within this mountain range. The portion of the range above 1000 meters elevation is home to the Northern New Guinea mountain rain forests ecoregion , which also extends across portions of the neighboring ranges. The slopes below 1000 meters are part of the Northern New Guinea lowland rain and freshwater swamp forests . Two of the most endangered mammals in
36-489: A family of about fifty languages of the northern Papua New Guinea coast, spoken by about 80,000 people. They are named after the Torricelli Mountains . The most populous and best known Torricelli language is Arapesh , with about 30,000 speakers. They are not clearly related to other Papuan language families; however, attempts have been made to establish external links. The most promising external relationship for
54-745: A proposed family of about 35 Papuan languages spoken in the Ramu and Sepik river basins of northern Papua New Guinea . These languages tend to have simple phonologies, with few consonants or vowels and usually no tones. Two primary branches are typically accepted: However, Foley (2018) also considers the possibility of Grass being a third primary branch. Usher classifies some of the Grass languages (the Keram languages ) as being coordinate with Ramu, and some (the Porapora languages ) as being part of Ramu. The relatedness of
72-781: Is more likely that SVO order was present in the Torricelli proto-language. Torricelli languages display many typological features that are direct opposites of features typical in the much more widespread Trans-New Guinea languages . However, Bogia and Marienberg languages have SOV word order and postpositions, likely as a result of convergence with Lower Sepik-Ramu and Sepik languages , which are predominantly SOV. Torricelli languages also lack clause chaining constructions, and therefore have no true conjunctions or clause-linking affixes. Clauses are often simply juxtaposed. In Torricelli and Lower Sepik-Ramu languages , phonological properties of nouns can even determine gender. Like in
90-485: The Germanic and Romance languages, while internal diversity within the Torricelli family is considerably higher. The Torricelli languages are unusual among Papuan languages in having a basic clause order of SVO (subject–verb–object). (In contrast, most Papuan languages have SOV order.) It was previously believed that the Torricelli word order was a result of contact with Austronesian languages, but Donohue (2005) believes it
108-557: The Lower Sepik and Ramu groups are related, Ramu is morphologically much simpler than Lower Sepik due to differing historical contact scenarios. The Ndu , Yuat , and Ramu groups all have relatively simple morphology, while the Lower Sepik family has some of the most complex morphology seen among Papuan languages. Foley posits that morphological simplification among these disparate languages families had occurred due to creolization through widespread language contact . He notes that
126-560: The Yuat and Lower Sepik-Ramu languages, nouns in Torricelli languages are inflected for number, which is a typological feature not generally found in the Trans–New Guinea , Sepik , Lakes Plain , West Papuan , Alor–Pantar , and Tor–Kwerba language families. Wilhelm Schmidt linked the Wapei and Monumbo branches, and the coastal western and eastern extremes of the family, in 1905. The family
144-701: The Lower Sepik peoples, which record that Yimas is spoken near their homeland, as well as the conservative nature of Yimas itself, Ross suggests that the speakers of Proto–Ramu – Lower Sepik may have lived in the northern foothills of the New Guinea highlands and moved into the Sepik Basin as the inland Sepik Sea started to recede six thousand years ago. The Ramu-Lower Sepik family is not accepted by Søren Wichmann (2013), who splits it into 4-5 separate groups. Foley (2018) accepts that Ramu and Lower Sepik are related on
162-732: The Torricelli family is the Sepik languages . (In reconstructions of both families, the pronouns have a plural suffix *-m and a dual suffix *-p .) C.L. Voorhoeve (1987) has proposed that they are related to the North Halmahera languages and most of the languages of the Bird’s Head Peninsula , thus forming the easternmost extension of the postulated West Papuan family . The Torricelli languages occupy three geographically separated areas, evidently separated by later migrations of Sepik-language speakers several centuries ago. Foley considers
180-407: The Torricelli languages to be autochthonous to the Torricelli Mountains and nearby surrounding areas, having been resident in the region for at least several millennia. The current distribution of Lower Sepik-Ramu and Sepik (especially Ndu ) reflects later migrations from the south and the east. Foley notes that the Lower Sepik and Ndu groups have lower internal diversity comparable to that of
198-477: The basis of morphological evidence, although they are typologically still very different from each other. It is also accepted by Glottolog. Grass languages are lexically divergent, sharing very few cognates with the other Ramu languages. Foley (2018: 205) leaves open the possibility of Grass being a third branch of the Lower Sepik-Ramu family, with Lower Sepik and Ramu being sister branches . Although
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#1732852045995216-400: The most spread-out languages with wide geographical distributions are also the ones with the simplest morphologies: Abau , Iwam , Kwanga , Ambulas , Boiken , Iatmul , Ap Ma , Mikarew , Adjora , and Rao (these are all Sepik and Ramu languages). The internal coherence of the two branches, Ramu and Lower Sepik, is based on similar pronoun paradigms , which however do not connect
234-569: The rest of the family in a 'Sepik Coast' branch. Foley (2018) provides the following classification. Foley rejects Laycock's (1975) Kombio-Arapeshan grouping, instead splitting up into the Arapesh and Urim groups. Glottolog v4.8 presents the following classification for the "Nuclear Torricelli" languages: In addition, Hammarström et al. do not accept the placement of the Bogia languages within Torricelli, stating that "no evidence [for this]
252-426: The three branches are held together by morphological evidence, as very few lexical cognates are shared among them. The family was proposed by William A. Foley and accepted by Malcolm Ross . Its two branches, Ramu and Lower Sepik , had belonged to Donald Laycock 's now-defunct 1973 Sepik–Ramu proposal. If related, they are not close. The connection is not accepted by Timothy Usher. Based on oral histories of
270-643: The two branches to each other. Foley was able to connect them lexically, but the primary evidence for a Ramu – Lower Sepik family is a number of irregular plural markers shared by the Lower Sepik languages and the Ramu languages Watam and Bosman . The pronouns themselves have little in common except for 3sg *man (proto-Ramu) ~ *mɨn (proto–Lower Sepik) and the non-singular affix *-ŋk- ( dual in Ramu and paucal in Lower Sepik: See Ramu languages#Pronouns and Lower Sepik languages#Pronouns for details). Whereas
288-563: The world, Scott's tree-kangaroo ( Dendrolagus scottae ) and golden-mantled tree-kangaroo ( Dendrolagus pulcherrimus ), live in the mountains' rainforest . Discovered in 1981, the critically endangered northern glider ( Petaurus abidi ) occurs exclusively in an area of less than 100 km in the Torricelli Mountains. This Papua New Guinea –related geography article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Torricelli languages The Torricelli languages are
306-597: Was ever presented". The pronouns Ross (2005) reconstructs for proto-Torricelli are Foley (2018) reconstructs the independent personal pronouns *ki ‘I’ and *(y)i ‘thou’, and *(y)ip ‘you (pl)’. Foley considers the second-person pronouns to be strong diagnostics for determining membership in the Torricelli family. Foley (2018) reconstructs the following subject agreement prefixes for proto-Torricelli. A cognate set for 'louse' in Torricelli languages as compiled by Dryer (2022): Lower Sepik-Ramu languages The Ramu–Lower Sepik a.k.a. Lower Sepik–Ramu languages are
324-548: Was more fully established by David Laycock in 1965. Most recently, Ross broke up Laycock and Z’graggen's (1975) Kombio branch , placing the Kombio language in the Palei branch and leaving Wom as on its own, with the other languages ( Eitiep , Torricelli (Lou), Yambes , Aruek ) unclassified due to lack of data. Usher tentatively separates Monumbo, Marienberg, and the Taiap (Gapun) language from
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