Meriam language
Encyclopedia : M : ME : MER : Meriam language
Meriam (also Miriam, Meryam, Mer, Mir, Miriam-Mir, etc. and East Torres) is the language of Meriam people of Murray Island (Mer) in the Torres Strait, Queensland, Australia.
Classification
Although Meriam is located in Australian territory, it is regarded as a Papuan language, not an Australian language.Meriam was placed in the Eastern Trans-Fly family of Trans-New Guinea by Stephen Wurm, and this is followed by Ethnologue (2005). In 2005 Malcolm Ross concluded that the Eastern Trans-Fly languages were not part of Trans-New Guinea, but kept the family itself with Meriam as a member. R.M.W. Dixon (2002) regards claims of a relationship between the Fly River languages and Meriam as unproven.
The other Eastern Trans-Fly languages are Bine, Gizra, and Wipii.
References
External links
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.