The Marind languages are a well established language family

Language family

A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term 'family' comes from the tree model of language origination in historical linguistics, which makes use of a metaphor comparing languages to people in a...

 of Papuan languages

Papuan languages

The Papuan languages are those languages of the western Pacific which are neither Austronesian nor Australian. The term does not presuppose a genetic relationship. The concept of Papuan peoples as distinct from Melanesians was first suggested and named by Sidney Herbert Ray in 1892.-The...

, spoken by the Marind-anim

Marind-anim

Marind-anim are a people living in South New Guinea, south of the lower parts of river Digul, east of Yos Sudarso Island, mainly west of Maro River . Today the area inhabited by Marind-anim is contained by Papua province of Indonesia.In the past, they were famed because of headhunting...

. They form part of the Trans–New Guinea languages in the classifications of Stephen Wurm

Stephen Wurm

Stephen Adolphe Wurm was a Hungarian-born Australian linguist.- Biography :Wurm was born in Budapest, the second child to the German-speaking Adolphe Wurm and Hungarian-speaking Anna Novroczky, and was christened Istvan Adolphe Wurm...

 and Malcolm Ross

Malcolm Ross

Malcolm David Ross is a linguist and professor at the Australian National University. He has published work on Austronesian and Papuan languages, historical linguistics, and language contact.-External links:**...

.

• Marind family
  • Boazi branch: Kuni-Boazi, Zimakani
    Zimakani language
    Zimakani is a Papuan language spoken in Papua New Guinea by approximately 1500 people.- External links :* at Ethnologue...
    
    
  • Marind proper
    Marind language
    Marind is a Papuan language spoken in Papua New Guinea by over ten thousand people. Dialects are Southeast Marind, Gawir, Holifoersch, and Tugeri. Bian Marind , Boven-Mbian, is divergent enough to not be mutually intelligible, and has been assigned a separate code....
    
    
  • Yaqay branch: Warkay-Bipim, Yaqay
    Yaqay language
    Yaqay is a Papuan language spoken in Papua New Guinea by over ten thousand people. It's also called Mapi or Sohur; dialects are Oba-Miwamon, Nambiomon-Mabur, Bapai....
    
    

The Marind languages were partially identified by Sidney Herbert Ray

Sidney Herbert Ray

Sidney Herbert Ray was a comparative and descriptive linguist who specialized in Melanesian languages. In 1892, he read an important paper, The languages of British New Guinea, to the Ninth International Congress of Orientalists. In that paper, he established the distinction between the...

and JHP Murray in 1918; the family was filled out by JHMC Boelaars in 1950. It was incorporated into Trans–New Guinea by Stephen Wurm in 1975.