Eastern Trans-Fly

The Eastern Trans-Fly, or Oriomo, languages are a small independent family of Papuan languages spoken on the Oriomo Plateau in Papua New Guinea's Western Province, with one member, Meriam, also called Meryam Mir, spoken across the border in Australia's Torres Strait Islands. The family comprises four languages with a combined population of roughly 7,250 speakers: Wipi, also called Gidra, with about 3,500, Bine with about 2,000, Gizrra with about 1,050, and Meriam with about 700. The languages were originally grouped within Stephen Wurm's broader Trans-Fly and Trans-New Guinea proposals, but some linguists now retain Eastern Trans-Fly as an independent family.