Lepki, Murkim and Kembra are a small group of related Papuan languages spoken in Highland Papua in Western New Guinea, each documented as a near relative of the other two. Lepki is known mainly from a few hundred recorded words gathered in hastily collected wordlists; Murkim, spoken by fewer than 300 people in Murkim District of Pegunungan Bintang Regency, is still being learned by children; Kembra is spoken by about twenty people in Kiambra village of Keerom Regency and is no longer passed down to children.
Facts
Disputed
Proto-Language StatusNo proto-language reconstruction has been published. Classification is unsettled: Wichmann (2013) found Lepki and Murkim closely related, a position accepted by Glottolog; Usher (2018) places the group in the southern branch of Pauwasi; Foley (2018) treats them as an independent family with Kembra as an isolate. 1 RegionHighland Papua, Western New Guinea, in the north of Papua near the Papua New Guinea border 1 Sources
1. Wikipedia: Lepki-Murkim Languages
Wikimedia FoundationClassification section, quoting Mark Donohue (2007)
Murkim [and] Lepki [and] Kembra are, along with a number of other languages, unclassified groups living between the main cordillera and Mt. 6234, in the north of Papua near the PNG border
Classification section
Usher (2018) classifies the three languages in the southern branch of the Pauwasi family. Foley (2018) classifies them separately as an independent language family.
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