Marind

Marind is the principal language of the Marind-anim people of the southern New Guinea lowlands, spoken around Merauke and the Bian River. Together with Yaqay and a few closely related tongues it forms the Marind-Yaqai family, placed in the Anim branch of the Trans-New Guinea phylum. Its dialects include Southeast Marind, Gawir, Holifoersch and Tugeri, while Bian Marind diverges enough to count as a separate language.

It was the language of a headhunting society whose Tugeri war parties raided neighbouring peoples and the Torres Strait islands, the waterway first traversed by the Spanish expedition of Luis Vaez de Torres in 1606. Officials and missionaries first systematically recorded it in the early twentieth century.