The Mantion–Meax, Mantion–Meyah, or (South) East Bird's Head languages are a language family of three languages in the "Bird's Head Peninsula" of western New Guinea, spoken by all together 20,000 people.
Basic vocabulary among East Bird's Head languages (Meyah, Moskona, Sougb, Hatam, Mansim) listed in Holton & Klamer (2018). The sets are not necessarily cognate.[1]
Additional East Bird's Head basic vocabulary quoted by Holton & Klamer (2018)[1] from Miedema & Reesink (2004: 34) and (Reesink 2005: 202), showing diverse non-cognate vocabulary across different branches:[2][3]
^ abHolton, Gary; Klamer, Marian (2018). "The Papuan languages of East Nusantara and the Bird's Head". In Palmer, Bill (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide. The World of Linguistics. Vol. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 569–640. ISBN978-3-11-028642-7.
^Miedema, Jelle and Ger P. Reesink. 2004. One Head, Many Faces: New perspectives on the Bird’s Head Peninsula of New Guinea. Leiden: KITLV.
^Reesink, Ger P. 2005. West Papuan languages: roots and development. In: Pawley et al. (eds.) 185–218.
Further reading
Reesink, Ger P. (2002). "The Eastern Bird's Head Languages Compared". In Ger P. Reesink (ed.). Languages of the Eastern Bird's Head. Pacific Linguistics. Vol. 524. Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University. pp. 1–44. hdl:1885/146144.