Historical lexical dataset for Raja Ampat-South Halmahera: Austronesian etyma and their developments

Raja Ampat-South Halmahera is a subbranch of South Halmahera-West New Guinea branch of the Austronesian language family. The Raja Ampat-South Halmahera languages are spoken in the Raja Ampat archipelago, just off the northwest tip of New Guinea, and in southern Halmahera, about 350km further west. This dataset is an Excel spreadsheet listing the Austronesian etyma with reflexes in the Raja Ampat-South Halmahera languages. For each etymon, the spreadsheet provides the attested reflexes, and an account of the segmental developments that derive these forms at different stages of the family tree. For the South Halmahera languages, the developments are provided down to the level of Proto-Raja Ampat-South Halmahera; for the Raja Ampat languages, the developments continue down to the reflexes attested in the present day. The data from Raja Ampat-South Halmahera languages and proto-languages are drawn from the following published sources: Language Raja Ampat/South Halmahera Proto-language? Glottocode Source Notes Proto-Maˈya-Salawati Raja Ampat Y n/a Arnold (2024) Reconstructions justified in Arnold (2025) Matbat Raja Ampat N matb1237 Arnold (2024) Data originally collated from Remijsen (2015) Proto-Ambel Raja Ampat Y n/a Arnold (2024) Reconstructions justified in Arnold (2020) As Raja Ampat N asss1237 Arnold (2024) Gebe/Minyaifun South Halmahera N gebe1237 Blust et al. (2024), Kamholz (n.d.) Buli South Halmahera N buli1255 Blust et al. (2024), Kamholz (n.d.) Sawai South Halmahera N sawa1247 Blust et al. (2024), Kamholz (n.d.) Gane/Giman South Halmahera N gane1237 Blust et al. (2024), Kamholz (n.d.) Taba South Halmahera N east2440 Blust et al. (2024), Kamholz (n.d.) All PAN and PMP reconstructions in this dataset come from Blust et al. (2023), and cognacy judgements are drawn from a combination of Blust et al. (2023), Kamholz (n.d.), and my own analysis. This dataset is associated with a forthcoming paper: Arnold, Laura. A closer look at *ə in South Halmahera-West New Guinea. For publication in Antoinette Schapper and Laura Arnold (eds.), New historical perspectives on South Halmahera-West New Guinea, Language Science Press. References Arnold, Laura. 2020. Highs and lows: Towards reconstructing the word-prosodic system of proto-Ambel. Transactions of the Philological Society 118. 141–158. doi: 10.1111/1467-968X.12177 Arnold, Laura. 2024. Lexical comparanda for 14 Austronesian varieties of Raja Ampat, northwest New Guinea. Zenodo dataset. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.13859484 (accessed 2026-03-04). Arnold, Laura. 2025. The diachrony of word prosody in the Maˈya-Salawati languages of Raja Ampat. Oceanic Linguistics 64(1). 187–245. doi: 10.1353/ol.2025.a960926 Blust, Robert, Stephen Trussel & Alexander D. Smith. 2023. CLDF dataset derived from Blust’s “Austronesian Comparative Dictionary”. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.7741197 (accessed 2026-03-04). Kamholz, David. n.d. Lexifier. Available at http://lexifier.lautgesetz.com (accessed 2026-03-04). Remijsen, Bert. 2015. Matbat_MageyDialect_2003_Lexicography, 1998–2003 [text], https://datashare.is.ed.ac.uk/handle/10283/796 (accessed 2026-03-04).