Tami

The Upper Tami or Border languages are a small independent family of Papuan languages straddling the border between New Guinea's eastern and western halves, named after the Tami River in the island's far north.

Their three branches are Taikat, to which Awyi belongs; Bewani; and Waris. Unlike their Sepik neighbours, Border languages have no grammatical gender and no dual or plural number on nouns.

In the later 1700s Bewani speakers expanded rapidly out of their hills, setting off chain migrations that split the Kwomtari-speaking country in two, pushed the Fas into the swamps around Utai, and drove other groups down the Pual River until the newcomers were checked by fighting in the Kaure lands. These movements remade the linguistic map of the border country only a few generations before the first colonial patrols reached it.