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The Pauwasi languages are a likely language family of Papuan languages, mostly in Indonesia. The subfamilies are at best only distantly related. The best described Pauwasi language is Karkar language, across the border in Papua New Guinea. They are spoken around the headwaters of the Pauwasi River in the Indonesian-PNG border region.
Based on earlier work, the East and West Pauwasi languages of Indonesia were classified together in Wurm (1975), though he (and later researchers) did not recognize that Karkar language (Karkar) of Papua New Guinea was also East Pauwasi. That connection was made by Usher, though anthropologists had long known of the connection. Later the South Pauwasi languages were also identified by Usher, and the West Pauwasi family tentatively expanded. New Guinea World Wichmann (2013), Foley (2018) and Pawley & Hammarström (2018), noting the sharp differences among the three groups, are agnostic about whether West Pauwasi, East Pauwasi and South Pauwasi are related.Wichmann, Søren. 2013. A classification of Papuan languages . 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.
The inclusion of Molof language (Poule) is especially tentative (as of 2020). NewGuineaWorld, Poule
The languages are not close: though the Eastern languages are clearly related, Yafi and Emumu are only 25% lexically similar. Pawley and Hammarström (2018) also question whether Eastern Pauwasi and Western Pauwasi are really related. They also note that Tebi and Towei are very different from each other, and may not necessarily group with each other. (2026). 9783110286427, De Gruyter Mouton. ISBN 9783110286427
Karkar-Yuri, long thought to be an isolate in Papua New Guinea, is clearly related and may actually form a dialect continuum with Emumu in Indonesia. On the other hand, the Western languages are so poorly attested that it is not certain that they are part of the Pauwasi family (or even related to each other), or if the common words are loans and they constitute a separate family or families, though a family connection appears likely.Harald Hammarström, 2010. The status of the least documented language families in the world
The proto-forms of the pronouns have not been reconstructed. Attested forms include:
Yafi and Emumu are similar, and Dubu and Towei may share 1pl *numu, but there is not apparent connection between them. Dubu no and Yafi nam might reflect pTNG *na, and Towei ngo pTNG *ga (*nga), and the plural pTNG *nu and *ni.
Pawley and Hammarström (2018) do not consider there to be sufficient evidence for the Pauwasi languages to be classified as part of Trans-New Guinea, though they do note the following lexical resemblances between Tebi, Yafi, and proto-Trans-New Guinea.
Foley (2018) notes that Western Pauwasi has more Trans-New Guinea lexical similarities than East Pauwasi does. He notes that Karkar-Yuri shares some typological similarities with the Trans-New Guinea languages, which could be due to chance, contact, or genetic inheritance.
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