Some notes on the Tsaukambo language of West Papua

Abstract

This article presents some first observations on the Tsaukambo language of West Papua's Digul Basin. It is entirely based on the language learning and field notes of missionary Baas (1981). The Tsaukambo speech community, on the Lower Dawi river, is culturally very similar to its Awyu-Dumut and Ok neighbors, for example in clan-based organization, feast cycles, Omaha kinship system and an extended body-part system of counting. Linguistically, Tsaukambo has its closest ties to its western neighbor Korowai and its northern neighbor Komyandaret. It is argued that these three languages form a group of closely related languages that we call the Becking-Dawi group. This BeckingDawi group shares ancestry with the Awyu-Dumut family in the Greater Awyu family. \ud \u