Mombum languages

Mombum was first classified as a branch isolate of the Central and South New Guinea languages in Stephen Wurm's 1975 expansion for Trans–New Guinea, a position tentatively maintained by Malcolm Ross, though he cannot tell if the similarities are shared innovations or retentions from proto-TNG. Usher instead links them to the Asmat languages.^[1] Koneraw is clearly related to Mombum, but was overlooked by early classifications. Along with the Kolopom languages, they are the languages spoken on Yos Sudarso Island (Kolopom Island).

Noting insufficient evidence, Pawley and Hammarström (2018), who refer to the languages as the Komolom branch, tentatively leave it as unclassified rather than as part of Trans-New Guinea.^[2]

Pronouns are:

The following basic vocabulary words are from McElhanon & Voorhoeve (1970)^[3] and Voorhoeve (1975),^[4] as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database.^[5]

The words cited constitute translation equivalents, whether they are cognate (e.g. wonderam, wondrum for “head”) or not (e.g. iŋar, itöx for “bone”).