The position of the Mek languages of Irian Jaya among the Papuan languages; History, typology, and speech

Introduction This article sets out to evaluate the unity and diversity of the from different points of view. I will tackle this general task by giving an account specifically of what differentiates the Mek from, and subsequently what relates them to, the other languages. Until approximately forty years ago, the had 'been thought to be mostly not related to each other ... The term Papuan languages or non-Austronesian languages was, in consequence, only employed as a negative classificatory term describing referred to by that name, as distinct from Austronesian ... languages, without presuming the existence of any genetic link between them' (Wurm 1982:3). Over the past four decades an impressive number of descriptive works on these languages, including complete grammars, written mostly by members of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, have been published. Thanks to language surveys conducted by that institution, and, above all, thanks to the work of scholars like Anceaux, Cowan, Wurm, Laycock, Voorhoeve, Dutton2, and others, our insight into the classification of the

Linguistic typology · Linguistics · Sociology · Typology · Anthropology · Computer Science · History · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Philosophy · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation

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