Meriam Language - Classification

Classification

Although Meriam is located in Australian territory, it is a Papuan language. It has, however, around 25 percent of its vocabulary in common with its unrelated Western Torres Strait neighbour Kala Lagaw Ya, which is an Australian language. There are some minor vocabulary influences of Melanesian, Polynesian (in particular Rotuman), Indonesian, Philippine, Japanese, and European origin. Many such outsiders were recruited – or in some cases black-birded – in the 19th century for pearl diving and other marine work.

Meriam was classified in the Eastern Trans-Fly family of Trans–New Guinea by Stephen Wurm, who however felt that these have retained remnants of pre-Trans–New Guinea languages, and this is followed by Ethnologue (2005). In 2005 Malcolm Ross concluded that the Eastern Trans-Fly languages were not part of the Trans–New Guinea phylum, but kept the family intact with Meriam as a member. R. M. W. Dixon (2002) regards claims of a relationship between the Fly River languages and Meriam as unproven, though what he bases his claim on is not clear, as Meriam Mir has a high cognation rate with its sister languages, and a certain amount of mutual intelligibility is claimed by Meriam speakers. Such Trans-Fly cognates include personal pronouns and verbal and nominal morphology.