Yapen

Yapen denotes the Malayo-Polynesian language branch spoken on Yapen Island and the neighbouring islets of Cenderawasih Bay, off the north-western coast of New Guinea. Linguists divide it into western, central and eastern groups, whose speakers live side by side with communities speaking the non-Austronesian Yawa languages.

Yapen seafaring towns such as Ansus and Serui took part in the bay's trade networks. Europeans first reached the island in 1528, when the Spanish navigator Álvaro de Saavedra landed there and charted it as Paine, one of the Islas de Oro; another Spaniard, Íñigo Ortiz de Retes, visited it in 1545.