Papuan peoples

Papuan peoples are the diverse Indigenous peoples of New Guinea and nearby islands. Many speak Papuan languages, a broad grouping of languages outside the Austronesian family.

Papuan languages: A broad grouping of languages spoken mainly in New Guinea and nearby islands that are not Austronesian. These languages are a major, though not universal, marker of Papuan identity.
Austronesian peoples: Peoples whose languages belong to the Austronesian family, distributed across islands from Madagascar to the Pacific. Austronesian-speaking communities have long lived alongside Papuan-speaking communities in parts of New Guinea.
Tok Pisin: An English-lexified creole language and one of Papua New Guinea’s official languages. It serves as a widely used lingua franca among people with many different first languages.
Papuan language classification: The study of how the non-Austronesian languages of New Guinea and nearby islands are related. Many languages remain difficult to classify, and the scope of larger proposed families is debated.
New Guinea: An island north of Australia, divided between Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. It is the principal homeland of Papuan peoples.
Melanesians: The peoples of Melanesia, a Pacific region that includes New Guinea and neighboring island groups. Papuan peoples form a large part of Melanesia’s Indigenous populations.
Hiri Motu: A simplified form of Motu used as a lingua franca in parts of Papua New Guinea. Its history shows how a local language became a tool of intercommunity communication.
Trans-New Guinea hypothesis: The proposal that many languages of New Guinea and nearby areas descend from a common ancestor. Its boundaries and internal relationships remain subjects of comparative linguistic research.
Austronesian languages: A language family spread across much of the Pacific, Southeast Asia, and parts of Madagascar. Their presence alongside Papuan languages complicates any simple language-based definition of Papuan identity.
West Papuans: Indigenous peoples of the western half of New Guinea, within Indonesia. They are among the communities encompassed by the broader term Papuan peoples.

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