The term 'Sentani' is ambiguous. It may be used in a wider sense, including Demta, in a narrow sense (Sentani proper) excluding Demta – either as an unrelated language family or as a branch of Demta–Sentani – or for the Sentani language itself. Usher distinguishes these three scopes as 'Demta – Sentani Lake', 'Sentani Lake' and 'Sentani'.
Demta–Sentani was a branch of Stephen Wurm's proposal for Trans–New Guinea. The languages have lexical similarities with the Asmat–Kamoro languages, though later linguists have not accepted the resemblances as indicative of a genealogical relationship. Pawley and Hammarström (2018) list the following resemblances between the Sentani languages and proto-Trans-New Guinea, though they classify Sentani as a separate language family rather than as part of Trans-New Guinea.[2]
C. Sentani an- ‘eat’ < *na-
C. Sentani mikæ ‘vomit’ (n.) < *mVkV[C]
C. Sentani mu ‘penis’ < *mo
W. Sentani, Tabla oto ‘leg’ < *k(a,o)ndok
Tabla miŋ, C. Sentani mi ‘louse’ < *iman
C. Sentani mi- ‘come’ < *me-
Ross (2005) does not believe these demonstrate a genealogical relationship, and proposes instead that the Demta–Sentani languages are related to the East Bird's Head languages, in a tentative East Bird's Head – Sentani family.
Foley (2018) classifies them as an independent language family.[3]
Usher (2020) tentatively includes them in a proposed Northwest Papuan family, though as of 2020 it's not clear whether the resemblances are due to inheritance or borrowing.
The connection between Demta and the Sentani languages is not supported by Søren Wichmann (2013)'s automated comparison.[4]
The following basic vocabulary words are from McElhanon & Voorhoeve (1970) (for Sentani)[5] and Voorhoeve (1975),[6] as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database:[7]
^Pawley, Andrew; Hammarström, Harald (2018). "The Trans New Guinea family". 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. 21–196. ISBN978-3-11-028642-7.
^ abFoley, William A. (2018). "The languages of Northwest New Guinea". 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. 433–568. ISBN978-3-11-028642-7.
^Wichmann, Søren. 2013. A classification of Papuan languagesArchived 2020-11-25 at the Wayback Machine. In: Hammarström, Harald and Wilco van den Heuvel (eds.), History, contact and classification of Papuan languages (Language and Linguistics in Melanesia, Special Issue 2012), 313-386. Port Moresby: Linguistic Society of Papua New Guinea.
^McElhanon, K.A. and Voorhoeve, C.L. The Trans-New Guinea Phylum: Explorations in deep-level genetic relationships. B-16, vi + 112 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1970. doi:10.15144/PL-B16
^Voorhoeve, C.L. Languages of Irian Jaya: Checklist. Preliminary classification, language maps, wordlists. B-31, iv + 133 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1975. doi:10.15144/PL-B31
