What makes Papuan languages so unique? - features from the area with the most languages

Melanesia is the place with the most languages on earth, most of which are Papuan. These are the features that set them apart from surrounding language families.
Solidarity: docs.google.co...
Voices: docs.google.co...
Sources: docs.google.co...
The Papuan languages are traditionally said to be the old non-Austronesian and non-Australian languages of Melanesia. What makes Papuan languages "Papuan"? And what are the real relations between Melanesian, Oceanic and Austronesian languages? How are these tied to the people and their "langriculture" from the last video?
Art and animation by me, with pics from sources above.
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Most sounds by the Sawos people of Toremby village, recorded by Dr. Tyman: www.johntyman.c...

[@zh84]

I am reminded of the "Palaeosiberian" language family, which was basically "all the languages in Siberia which aren't Tungusic". In fact it is what biologists call a "taxonomic wastebin" which just includes all the things that don't fit. In that case, though, with only a dozen or so languages, it is much easier to analyse!

[@taimunozhan]

The more common term for that is "residual category" but, talking about language, there are some funny linguistic parallels between "taxonimc wastebin" and "residual category": both phrases are comprised of a somewhat learnéd adjective following a commonplace noun but the semantics of each element are reversed, with "residual" and being linked to "waste" (just like "wastebin") while "categories" belong to taxonomy.

[@rowancampbell864]

It would be difficult to say that there's anything that the paleo-siberian languages have in common with each other that they don't have in common with turkic, tungusic, mongolic, or uralic.

[@SomasAcademy]

The so-called "Nilo-Saharan" languages of Northern/Eastern Africa are similar, basically just "all the languages in the Northern half of Africa which aren't Afroasiatic or Niger-Congo".

[@-SUM1-]

I don't think the Palaeosiberian languages have ever been considered a "language family".

[@AdityaMehendale]

@@taimunozhan "Residue" does not commentate on value, though "waste" does.

[@dolphin550]

The Papuasphere is so diverse and isn't talked about enough. Such wonderful and interesting languages those areas have!

[@gtc239]

Yeah, hope more people will talk about it, their rich linguistic diversity shall not be lost.

[@mildlifeisatrisk5727]

There, what you have done I see!

[@vaccino3359]

*talked

[@HYDROCARBON_XD]

@@gtc239 nah cringe less languages is better,you can’t communicate and that’s bad,only if they speak another language that is more spoken

[@atomictraveller]

half of that island has been suffering a silenced genocide for over 60 years, 1.8 million dead, world's biggest goldmine, u.s. operated. the UN just laughed in their faces again, on the same day that they had a full eclipse. academics can be fascinated, but ime understanding papuan requires song, valleys to sing across, and a life with nature instead of on top of it.

[@NativLang]

Another piece of love for the Papuasphere, this time with more grammar.

[@spooderman9122]

Always happy for another video from you

[@comeanomalocaris8267]

It would be so amazing if you made a video on Yiddish history as a Yiddish speaker!

[@tangsolaris9533]

@@comeanomalocaris8267 Oooh yes, excellent language!

[@Zethlynn]

@@comeanomalocaris8267 as a Yiddish learner I agree

[@tyowahyu7315]

Please make javanese language

[@damedesuka77]

Indonesian here. Your example of Austronesian word starting with ng- had me rolling. You made me "ngakak". You're an amazing linguist so I'm sure you know what the word means, it's just not a word that I expect to see from a non-Indonesian. Shows how far and wide you studied these languages. (*) Ngakak is like "lol" in English, a very informal way to express the act of laughing loudly and continuously.

[@azhariusman9428]

Free West Papua

[@MGharriy]

@@azhariusman9428 Free West Papua deez nutz

[@thvtsydneylyf3th077]

Free the West 🤙🏾

[@MGharriy]

@@thvtsydneylyf3th077 West papua is Indonesia

[@fandroid6491]

@@azhariusman9428 Buy 2 Hawaii, 1 Free West Papua

[@frankiecook923]

NativLang is the best language channel on KZbin by a country mile - the animations, the intonation in the narration (not just reading a text) and the detail delivered in simplicity all make it the best

[@gabor6259]

You don't think polýMATHY is close?

[@cerebrummaximus3762]

Xidnaf?

[@cerebrummaximus3762]

Tom Scott does Linguistic videos as well, but they are no where near as intricate as these, so I'm excluding him.

[@ecurewitz]

Agree. He does a very good job

[@romanr.301]

@@cerebrummaximus3762 That Thai alphabet one was pretty poorly made tbh

[@FairyCRat]

Interesting that Papua shares this abundance of co-articulated and pre-nasalized stops with West Africa. I wonder if this was part of the reason why European explorers were reminded of Guinea when they came there, and thus named the island New Guinea.

[@profeseurchemical]

mot impossible, but it was probably just the skin tone tbh.

[@derrickthewhite1]

@@profeseurchemical And don't forget the jungle!

[@EresirThe1st]

More likely climate lol

[@sahulianhooligan7046]

It was because of the feather headdress

[@pierreabbat6157]

I know of two unrelated Papuan languages that count in base 6: Yam languages such as Arammba, and Ndom. Arammba can count up to 279935. I don't know if Ndom can count past 215. Yali and Dani have possessive prefixes: nabelan-kabelan (literally my skin your skin, loosely metamorphosis or resurrection, or is that Sawi remon?). Indonesian has possessive suffixes. Fataluco, tetún, y portugués (Papuan, Austronesian, and Indo-European), all spoken in East Timor. There's a sentence in Asaro or Gahuku (I forget which, they're closely related) in which the word order is the reverse of English: Muli mako alitove loko, taoni loka vitove. Lemon some buy-will-I saying, town to go-will-I. I'm going to town to buy some lemons.

[@alexandrejosedacostaneto381]

Português, with a ê, not a é

[@elijah3550]

do u think tetum has influences from papuan languages?

[@Adhjie]

@@alexandrejosedacostaneto381 maybe OP mix it with indonesian dictionary spelling?

[@xolang]

@@alexandrejosedacostaneto381 to be fair, the poster is probably using spanish spelling there. hence "y protugués" instead of "e português". they also wrote "tetún" instead of "tetum".

[@xolang]

@@Adhjie the poster is probably using spanish spelling there. hence "y protugués" instead of "e português". they also wrote "tetún" instead of "tetum". in indonesian, "portuguese/portugués/português" would be "bahasa portugis".

[@Jay_in_Japan]

Papuan typology is perhaps one of my most favorite topics in all of linguistics! Hopefully I will get to study it more in-depth later in my university linguistics education ^.^

[@kinikarok.w4736]

Hi there I'm from PNG but I speak my language falls under Papuan Tip, western oceanic branch of Oceanic branch of Austronesian, but our word order is SOV influenced by neighbouring Papuan Languages. Eg. Pupu ġarena malaopa enanurato/Au tupuku ġarena malaopa enanurato. Pupu ġarena = granny Au = me tupuku = my granparent ġarena = female/woman Malaopa = yam/yams Enanurato = she/he cooked them. That glowing red hanging flower we call it ġara in my language, in English I think it's called Flame of the forest? .

[@rachel_Cochran]

beautiful and ingesting!!!

[@captainyulef5845]

PNG is an image format, and for few seconds I was confused on what you meant lol This is _very_ interesting, thank you for sharing!

[@jonadabtheunsightly]

Interesting. I don't see any consonant clusters in your example text. Does your language have them at all? (Austronesian languages usually don't. English, in contrast, has words like "schmaltz", "twelfths", "borscht", and "strengths".)

[@andikafabian]

Please make a channel for learning your language

[@PC_Simo]

@@jonadabtheunsightly Yep; though, half of those examples are loanwords: ”Schmaltz”, from German; and: ”Borscht”, from Russian/Ukrainian. Also, Finnish has some consonant clusters, too: ”Verstas” (”Workshop”), ”Porstua” (”Porch”), etc.

[@meganbrummer4258]

I stopped in the middle of the podcast I was listening to when the notification popped to come watch this video. New NativLang video = a good day!

[@marsgal42]

This reminded me in many ways of your video on Caucasian languages: groups isolated by geography who speak idiosyncratic languages. But with a radically different approach to consonants than Georgian or Chechen. 😀

[@Alexa-qv7kr]

I do wish you wouldn't be so hesitant to actually dive into the linguistics of it all. I feel that most of your viewers would be able to follow, and enjoy the deep dive! Coming out of this video without even an example sentence in the language in question makes it feel a bit shallowly delivered. Just a bit of constructive criticism, I still love your videos and am thankful you contribute to the niche topic on this platform!

[@mfadls]

Every time you eat banana, just remember that this healthy and delicious fruit is a contribution of Papuan people to the world in the prehistoric time.

[@kiripiksimping]

I have always felt there is something unique in the way Papuan stand-up comedians set up their stories. Now I realize that their storytelling are still built around nouns even when performing in Indonesian. Thank you for the enlightenment.

[@Patrick_919]

It's a good day when a new video of yours comes out.

[@atlasaltera]

So happy you followed up with another Niugini video! It would have been a beautifully artistic (but herculean) task to map even the conservative accepted number of Papuan language families from eastern Nusantara to the Solomons, like the way you did for the African language families video. I like how you briefly touched on the migration history of the area to give some context of the languages in relation to Austronesian. I believe recent human genetic clustering studies show that there are 3-4 or more hyper distinct genetic clusters in the area that have more genetic distance than most human populations across the globe have with each other (i.e. they are the product of several very ancient separate migrations). Since you're a language-based educator, it is understandable that you would not cover this topic though.

[@sahulianhooligan7046]

My father is Western Torres Strait Islander where the Australian language is spoken (Kala Lagaw Ya), and my mother is Eastern Torres Strait Islander where the Papuan language is spoken (Meriam Mir). Both languages have Austronesian influences. The theory behind it is, the western islands was inhabited originally by Australian Aboriginals, followed by seafaring Papuan-Austronesians who settled in the uninhabited eastern islands thus retaining its Papuan language but when they settled on the western islands, they mixed with the Australian population, who managed to keep the Australian language despite western Torres Strait Islanders today being more culturally Papuan/Pacific than Australian

[@thvtsydneylyf3th077]

what does 'culturally papuan' mean?

[@kilanspeaks]

There’s so much more to the region, we’re barely scratching the surface. On my channel I have an example of Ternate, a West Papuan language from North Maluku, and it exemplifies the definition of “everything that’s not Austronesian” because it’s not easy to make connections to the languages in Papua / New Guinea.

[@cha0ticneutralbigs]

I’d absolutely love to see more videos by you about Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander languages as an Aboriginal person

[@thvtsydneylyf3th077]

the ABC does a great bit on aboriginal language in oz

[@Salsmachev]

I am in favour of you pushing your channel boundaries. You making stuff that interests you will always be more interesting than the alternative.

[@vinom5364]

I'm lucky enough that I learned my mothers mother' tongue, Sinaki (swp). It's a Papuan Tip language in Western Suau Province of Milne Bay. Our particular dialect is spoke by maybe 300-400 people at most. I walk 1 hour down the beach to the next village and I can only vaguely understand what the villagers say in the village down the road. The languages are similar in origin, that much is obvious but as a speaker, it's difficult to understand, it is almost like a different language if German and Dutch are two different language or like a Euskara speaker trying to understand a Puerto Rican Spanish speaker.

[@david_oliveira71]

Oh wow, a new video from you! Glad you're still uploading, NativLang! Thank you, Kawp-kun, Kiitos, Danke, Spasiba, XieXie!

[@chloverily]

Just catching this video and really appreciate the "Aotearoa" in the first half ♥

[@kewaso_5313]

Beautiful languages, Staying on the theme you can do Australian and Amazonian langauges next

[@LuisAldamiz]

Papuans were not just hunter-gatherers, they developed one of the oldest Neolithics on Earth, the taro silviculture is some 10,000 years old.

[@Discotekh_Dynasty]

Oh hell yeah, the big man’s back

[@Victor83113]

I'm glad you're making content again, I always enjoyed your style

[@wolfrig2000]

Every time I think this channel is dead and isn't coming back, you post a new video!

[@altrifrancobolli]

A new linguistic adventure from NativLang, the best birthday present 🥳 🎉

[@NativLang]

Happy Birthday! 🎂

[@PC_Simo]

Native speakers of those ”Base 2” -languages should feel right at home with computers, I suppose 😅.

[@MaurycyNejman]

I was waiting so much for your video and here it is! Thank You for making content like that!

[@Goldenblitzer]

I’m normally able to keep up with most things, but it just went right over my head today, guess I’ll have to come back tomorrow for round 2

[@punishedredruby]

Hah, same here. I usually listen when I'm about to sleep since his voice is soothing.

[@user-oy8qp6bq3b]

Great work NativLang! I’m always so excited to see another one of these masterpieces. Each one of your videos opens up a new door to another world through the eyes of a unique language and its people. I came to love to learn about the many tongues of the world thanks to this channel, so for that I thank you, NativLang. I hope this channel continues to grow, and that everyone can enjoy these videos.

[@pillbobaggins2766]

it would be great if you did a video on Indigenous languages throughout Australia and how many of them are from the same family

[@user-we6gw8iy4l]

Long time no see NativLang. I am livin in Papua currently, and I am telling you, even 1km away neighbour's language is completely different with one another. 😂 like there is no sprachbund

[@racheljensen1823]

Absolutely facinating. I've always been intrigued by the unique language area. Definately well worth the wait :) Love the new layout again

[@donovantownshend8783]

I'm lovin' this Papuasphere series! So many interesting new ideas!

[@daviddantonio5702]

Great topic and video!! Being from Australia the second I learned about Papuan languages as a kid I was completely fascinated.

[@patricklindahl868]

Only on the island of Niugini there are more than 850 languages, about 500 of them are still alive. But your example of language syntax is mostly from Tok Pisin, a language that was invented in the middle of the 19th century, so the Germans could talk (give orders?) to the Chinese and Malaj people. This language, Tok Pisin, was very rudimentary in the beginning but has matured and is now the official language in PNG, together with English. Tok Pisin is a mix of English and lokal languages, e.g. airplane is Balus, which is a local word for butterfly in ENB (Rabaul). Has Tok Pisin also got it language syntax from the local languages?

[@Nemo_Anom]

Always nice to see a video from you! if you're taking requests, I would love another video on dating languages and families. This time, with a focus on how we can apply some dates, along with our best attempts at actually dating languages and families.

[@user-rv2ho6kv7q]

This is incredible. It feels like every single sentence hints at other stuff that could easily fill its own video.

[@OscarLopez-oe3ll]

Awesome video! It’s almost like the order of words for the American Sign Language.

[@RyanBigger]

This series is great! I would love if you made a follow-up series about austronesian langs.

[@gd__vk6991]

Yes, please!

[@HistoryofAztlan]

Another great video by you! Interesting that the Papuan languages weren’t endemic to the island. It’s also cool how many groups used different base number systems, it would be interesting to see what caused them to create these diverse systems of counting.

[@q22tv]

Hello NativLang! This was an awesome video and Papuan languages are certainly very interesting! I was wondering if you could make a video on the Inuit languages and specifically Greenlandic/Kalaallisut? They're super under-covered and they have some super interesting grammatical features! I myself have been learning Greenlandic for about a year by now and it's very hard to learn but also very fun :)

[@gaius_enceladus]

My high-school geography teacher (I went to high-school back in the '70s) worked for a while with one of the highland tribes in PNG. I even remember the tribe name - it was the Enga tribe!

[@AngelineOva]

It's the Enga Province today after separating from Western Highlands Province. Enga is the only Province that has one language whilst the other 21 has more than one.

[@BeneathTheBrightSky]

Now I know about Papuan languages, but you mentioned austronesian languages so much now I need to research those! Maybe an Austronesian video sometime?

[@keturahiyano1980]

Im from eastern highlands of papua new guinea . The word girl . My people called 'Abade ' for girl and the other neighboring villages called the same word but slightly twisted Amane Afane Amfane Afade They all mean the same, refers to the word girl. and for the word boy, Bade Mane Fade Fane Same vowls pronunciation, letter b, d, f, n, m to sound the word different. The further the village away from you the word changes completely so as the vowls. But few times your neighbor speaks a complete different language all together. Thats how I think we have so many languages. Just sharing 😊✌️

[@niklaspotter7003]

I hope you never stop with these videos in general but would wish more on North American native languages if I had a wish to make

[@johnmongver]

Tagalog speaker and linguist here 🤩 It's interesting how Austronesian languages and Papuan languages interact 🤩

[@parisan9985]

Same

[@Mightilyoats]

The words appearing in time with the birdsong at the beginning was such a nice touch

[@gd__vk6991]

This was a wonderful video! As a person who is now learning an Astronesian language, it was very interesting to see how these two language families compare. Thank you! ❤️

[@thvtsydneylyf3th077]

what Austro languages do you know or familiar with that are unique to Niu Gini?

[@Gamesaucer]

It's funny that in English you can kind of use OSV: Yams, grandma cooked. But that's the exact opposite from SOV. The "SV" part is ingrained in me pretty deep, while the O can just kind of float around wherever it wants, so long as it's not getting between S and V. But the "noun noun verb" order itself isn't so foreign. Anyway, let me try to write a sentence with grammar reminiscent of Papuan languages to see whether I've absorbed what this video is about. How about something like "The yams we'll eat are tasty because grandma will cook them"? I guess that'd turn out something like... "So yam, grandma yam em-cook'll-her, us yam em-eat'll-us, since grandma yam em-cook'll-her, yam tasty'll-em"? I guess I don't really know enough about how a word like "tasty" works here though. It's not a noun, so I don't know how it'd be marked on the verb. I guess I'm treating it like a stative verb here, but I'm not sure that's idiomatic. I'm also unsure how to specify tense in subclauses. Is it all future tense? I'm assuming so, but you could perhaps also get a "past-in-the-future" sort of sentence. Interesting stuff nevertheless.

[@BeneathTheBrightSky]

So, relative clause, for OSV in English, I think. Comma there, there is. Comma necessary, I say, and you notice. Like a Papuan storyteller, I talk. Using relative clauses, I do.

[@blahblah24681357]

this channel is a gift to humanity!

[@ikbintom]

Super cool video, maybe I'll tell Marian Klamer about it. She might be able to use it in her lectures even. (she was my BA thesis supervisor)

[@rodrigox.8037]

i'm glad you're uploading again, love your content

[@anunnakijones8965]

Never underestimate the value of the enlightenment that you bring with this channel that would otherwise go unknown.

[@johnburke8337]

I’m fighting some tough illness, and I wanted to thank you because your videos offer a pleasant respite

[@rishanpatel7031]

Love the new video

[@xmvziron]

I've missed you NativLang!!!

[@lukezhang6126]

Wake up babe, new NativLang upload

[@wulfgreyhame6857]

The curious thing is, in PNG, "Papuan" in popular usage, refers to the people along the southeast coast, who actually don't speak Papuan languages, as this article defines: they're Austronesian - Motu, Koita, Tupuseleia etc.

[@darkbloodprince2350]

Gotta make a slight correction there, Koita is non austronesian Language that is classified under the trans-new Guinea Language family, personally Koita sounds a bit like Koiari and because Koita people are believed to be an early branch off of the Koiari people. The Some western Motuan villages are called Motu-Koitabu because they allied themselves together when the Motuans first Moved there from the Eastern Motuan villages like Tubuserea, Motu Hanua(in bootless bay), etc areas to the west(port Moresby area) where the Koita inhabited. So now these so called Motu-Koita villages are of both Motu and Koita descent, Most speak Motu but also they Know how to speak in Koita as well By the way Tubuserea people speak Motu. Tubuserea is not the Language, it's the village name, the people speak Motu. Here's the current classification for Koita Language Trans-New Guinea >Koiarian >Koiaric >Koitabu

[@wulfgreyhame6857]

@@darkbloodprince2350 Thanks for that. I lived in Port Moresby from 1980 - 83, and assumed that because Motu-Koita was so often referred to, that they were closely related. I still have my aged copies of "A Dictionary of the Motu Language of Papua" and "A Grammar of the Motu Language of Papua" by Percy Chatterton!

[@ruedigernassauer]

I once read that "papua" is the Indonesian word for crispy hair. This is not confirmed by Google translator. However Google translator is not perfect.

[@ycantiusegeorgiantextforhandle]

@@ruedigernassauer the origin of the word Papua isn't really known, at least in modern Indonesian and Malay, Papua only refers to the island and the people who live there, afro-textured hair in Indonesian is 'kribo' or 'keriting' which just means curly. The two most common stories I've heard regarding the origin of the word is that it's an ancient Malay word for curly hair and a Ternate (a 'Papuan' language spoken by people in North Maluku) word for 'land of the rising sun'.

[@KanakaBae]

​@@ruedigernassauer from Malay term "rambut pua-pua".

[@jonadabtheunsightly]

Hmm. Having few consonants is also a common feature of Austronesian languages. (Some of them also have five vowels, but that's such a common feature of languages _in general_ that it is hardly worth mentioning. English with its thirty-some distinct vowel sounds, some of which have become diphthongs due to repeated sound shifts, is more the exception than the rule.) Now I'm curious whether many of the Papuan languages have a lot of closed syllables and/or consonant clusters. Austronesian languages mostly don't; whereas, Indo-European languages are chock full of both, especially in the Germanic and Slavic branches of the family. IE languages also have more than their fair share of consonant phonemes, especially in the Indo-Aryan branch. This combination leads to a relative abundance of low-syllable-count words, as compared to Austronesian languages, which lean heavily into polysyllabic vocabulary. Where do Papuan languages tend to fall on this spectrum?

[@Nemo_Anom]

"Not Austronesian" and "Not Australian" isn't enough to be a unique family. I'm not even sure it's enough to be a sprachbund. RWM Dixon is an Australianist who has thought a lot about a related sprachbund, the Australian languages. My suspicion is that, in both cases, they are very ancient sprachbunds that can no longer be recovered.

[@HarryGuit]

I think a closer look at the geography and intertribe relationships as well as the settling history would help to decide, if there has ever been a sprachbund at all. But of course all that must remain speculation looking at the scarce data to be found. I agree though that not being austronesian doesn‘t establish a language family based on one common ancestor.

[@chacmool2581]

Aren't there languages on the northern coast of PNG where the Papuan and Austronesian mixing has been so thorough that they are no longer distinguishable as the latter or the former?

[@gastarbeiter1]

Great to see you back :)

[@sahhaf1234]

please continue to dive into the papuan languages..

[@felipevasconcelos6736]

My native dialect of Portuguese has final negation in informal registers. While standard Portugues would have “Eu não quero inhame” (I NEG want-I.PRESENT yam) for “I don’t want yams” I might say that, or “Quero inhame não” (want-I.PRESENT yam NEG) depending on who I’m talking to. It also has double negation for emphasis. If I really hate yams, I could say “Eu não quero inhame não” or “Eu não quero não inhame”. Speakers of other dialects are sometimes confused by that, since they only have implied double negatives (like in AAVE “I didn’t do nothing”), not explicit double negatives. I love it when I hear about a rare and “obscure” linguistic feature and I’m like “wait, I do that”.

[@EriniusT]

Some Dominican Spanish speakers use double negation too

[@user-qh4dr1vy9d]

Most times double negation is the standard way for some people to negate things, no enforcement intended

[@chicoti3]

Double negation and post negation are definitely not rare. Just look at French, which shaped much of modern Portuguese. Your dialect most likely was influenced by African languages, a common theme in northeastern Brazil.

[@TubususCZ]

Interesting how simillar the described grammar of Papuan languages (though I'm sure there a very large amount of variation among them and these are just general trends) is to Japanese. From the word order and verb suffixes (I think, I'm still not entirely sure how Japanese verbs work), to the lack of plural nouns, complex pronouns (that nonetheless tend to disregard the third person) and finally the topic-based sentence structure, all that makes me wonder if there's some connection. If so, it would be a _very_ old connection and it's more likely just a coincidence, otherwise surely someone else would have picked up on it already. But it's certainly an interesting coincidence.

[@viracocha6093]

There probably is no connection tbh. Japan and New Guinea are too far away from each other

[@hijo5966]

​@@viracocha6093 Madagascar is "too far" from the indo-pacific yet we are still able to give evidence that the austronesians migrated there. If we take a claim that papuan and japanese (perhaps pre-yayoi and pre-jomon) languages are related then their similarities in grammar would point to that. Perhaps there were two populations of papuans that diverged from the urheimat; one population ended up in the japanese archipelago who were then subsequently/possibly genocided and another population migrated south towards Niugini. Genetic evidence of papuan admixture in modern japanese might shed light on this but I'm unaware of any studies.

[@Riot076]

I can honestly see some similarities between Papuan and Hungarian - the agglutinatinaveness of both of them,the irrelevance of plural forms (altho in case of Hungarian only if the number is mentioned,so like "3 chair" but "those chairs"),the head marking in possession,lack of passive voice (I mean it technically exists,but only for a few verbs and it isn't generally used),the presence of double negation,the storytelling bit reminds me of the topic-focus-verb-the rest Hungarian sentence order. So even the complex coincidences like that tend to pop up from time to time. My favourite English-Hungarian coincidence to this day,tho is the Hungarian word for "human",which is "ember". With many mythologies either associating the creation of a man with fire or sketching some ties between fire and humanity (the myth of Prometeus) or a human soul and fire it just seems so poetic,despite being this complete coincidence

[@valkeakirahvi]

@@Riot076 But even funnier is that ember sounds like the Finnish word ämpäri which means a bucket :P

[@ellermg]

You can't even imagine how happy I am that you posted a new video!!

[@Suth1172]

Man your videos on PNG have been great, we really should know more about the Papuan Languages and PNG & Indonesia in general here in Australia

[@angrydorito4]

Do you have a video in the making dedicated to just Australian languages? I'd love to know more about them, the diversity and how they relate to one another

[@thanbaltazar8923]

I'd like it as well

[@thanbaltazar8923]

I'd like it as well

[@juanjosealvarado5440]

I really love your videos. Could you talk about Australian languages?

[@thvtsydneylyf3th077]

aboriginie

[@tobiasmcnelly2579]

Love the grammar heavy episodes!! My favorite ones

[@dessertstorm7476]

What causes such density of different languages, some of them seemingly unrelated? Papua is not the only dense jungle island in the world. This much diversity usually indicates a point of origin.

[@the_linguist_ll]

Papua, both internally and externally, has a lot of spread zones (plains, rivers, open ocean, currents) that can move people around and into PNG, but it also has a TON of holder zones (mountains, impassable terrain, etc) that keeps people still and isolated. Basically a lot of people naturally end up there, and can spread out inside, yet they're kept isolated by geography for their languages to split, and making it harder to leave.

[@CharlesOffdensen]

2:47 the blue shape in the bottom right is one language family. The island of New Guinea has at least 30 such families. But maybe even 108.

[@user-mf1qr7wi4f]

Finally, we live to see it.

[@AlexanderNigbor]

The wait for your vids are always worth it.

[@sutematsu]

A lot of the grammatical features of Papuan really remind me of Athanpaskan features from the Americas. 🤔

[@algepaca]

Never clicked so fast lol

[@giacarc]

I definitely want more videos about Papuan languages and cultures!

[@nathanhiggers4606]

Didn't know that Mova is a Papuan language

[@TheGloriousLobsterEmperor]

Here's what I wanna know, *why* New Guinea has so many languages?

[@Beth-cj7ip]

So happy to see new videos from you!

[@queensabina9983]

🎉🎉 another informative and interesting video from you

[@koalbehy9760]

thank you for making another great video !! keep up the amazing work !! we all greatly appreciate it :).

[@Mr.Nichan]

I notice "Papuan languages" frequently have /ə/ and /ɨ/ phonemes (or similar, like /ɤ/ and /ɯ/) in addition to the basic five vowels (or however many peripheral vowels there are). There is a phenomenon of linguists treating [ɨ] as an epenthetic consonant rather than a full vowel in languages of this region, though. I imagine it probably has something to do with the "high vowel deletion" that I heard some paper mention.

[@andyjay729]

Papuan grammar is somewhat similar to Japanese, right?

[@FirstLast-di5sr]

8:40 "Yam that cook don't" That just broke my monolingual brain 🤪 [Read it backwards]

[@jasminegold6890]

The legend of language KZbin is back.

[@PC_Simo]

Finnish can also headmark the possessed noun (what you have), like: _”Kirjani”_ (meaning: ”My book”; made up of the root word: _”Kirja”_ (”Book”), and the possessive suffix: _”-ni”_ (”my”); so, it’s literally: ”Bookmy”). 8:50 Also, American English has double, and even triple negations; for example: ”I *_AIN’T_* got *_NO_* money.”, or: *_”DON’T NObody_* go *_NOwhere.”;_* as does Russian: _«Я ничего не сказал.»_ (literally: ”I nothing not said.”; so: ”I *_DIDN’T_* say *_NOTHING.”)_* 🤔.

[@niknaknel07]

Absolutely love your videos. Really insightful and lovely animation!

[@user-wf3ly2ed5k]

Thanks for the History.❤

[@MenelionFR]

Thank you so much, love your channel and your manner of teaching us so many interesting things about languages!

[@CraftsmanOfAwsomenes]

Thank you for making a followup with more linguistics since I didn't really get the last video.

[@noahkn03]

I highly appreciate it. Only a video once in a while but the quality is unmatched, especially given that you open a world to places that are otherwise neglected and little known about. 👍

[@FellowHuman18]

Can you imagine the modern human history in this area (last 50,000 years)? Unbelievable. So much we don't know.

[@Jenkowelten]

You should do Australian languages next

[@letsdoathing9568]

this video came out two months ago, why didn't youtube tell me?!!!

[@CoolGuy-th7bl]

The Torres Straight island is an interesting place as there are languages spoken from three different language groups; Kalaw Lagaw Ya (Pama Nguyen), Meriam Mer (Papuan) and an English based Creole (Indo-European).

[@thvtsydneylyf3th077]

they are aussies i think

[@CoolGuy-th7bl]

@@thvtsydneylyf3th077 yes Torres Straight Islands are part of Queensland

[@thvtsydneylyf3th077]

@@CoolGuy-th7bl they look like New Guineans

[@CoolGuy-th7bl]

@@thvtsydneylyf3th077 they are Australian citizens

[@trevs9925]

​@@thvtsydneylyf3th077They are actually Papua New Guineans.