Angan

Angan, also called the Kratke Range languages, is a closely knit family of Trans–New Guinea languages spoken in the rugged Kratke Range of eastern New Guinea. Its members include Ankave, Menya and Hamtai, the last also called Kapau; Hamtai is the most widely spoken of the family.

Some classifications treat Angan as an independent family rather than as part of Trans–New Guinea. In Menya, kinship is expressed through dyadic terms that name the relationship between two people, a device rare both in New Guinea and worldwide.

The Angan-speaking valleys lie far inland, and when the Spanish explorer Yñigo Ortiz de Retez gave the island its name in 1545, ranges such as the Kratke were entirely unknown to Europeans, whose reach did not extend to these communities until the colonial era.