Mawes is a recently extinct Papuan language of Indonesia's Papua province, formerly spoken west of the Buri River in Sarmi Regency's Bonggo District, in Maweswares village, and Bonggo Timur District, in Mawesday and Mawes Mukti villages. It had about 850 speakers in 2006 but had gone extinct by 2024. Its classification is disputed: Timothy Usher's 2020 work suggests a possible connection to the Kwerbic languages and tentatively groups it with the Northwest Papuan languages and this atlas's already-live Foja Range family, while William Foley in 2018 and Harald Hammarstrom in 2010 both classified it instead as a language isolate.
Facts
RegionPapua, Sarmi Regency, to the west of the Buri River, Indonesia 1 Speaker Count Proto-Language StatusDisputed: Foley (2018) and Hammarstrom (2010) classify Mawes as a language isolate; Usher (2020) tentatively proposes a link to the Kwerbic languages. 1 In the Other Atlases
- Also in Geography Atlas: Asia, found in there.
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Mawes Language
Wikimedia FoundationInfobox, region field
Papua, Sarmi Regency, to the west of the Buri River
Lead section
It had 850 native speakers in 2006, but was extinct by 2024.
Lead section, speaker count sentence
It had 850 native speakers in 2006, but was extinct by 2024.
Lead section, classification sentence
Foley (2018) classifies Mawes as a language isolate, and so does Hammarström (2010).
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