Timothy Usher finds that Madang is closest to the Upper Yuat River languages and other families to its west, but does not for now address whether this larger group forms part of the TNG family.

Sidney Herbert Ray identified the Rai Coast family in 1919.

In 1951 these were linked with the Mabuso languages by Arthur Capell to create his Madang family.

For the most part, Malcolm Ross's (2005) Madang family includes the same languages as Z'graggen Madang–Adelbert Range, but the internal classification is different in several respects, such as the dissolution of the Brahman branch.

The languages are as follows:[1][3] The time depth of Madang is comparable to that of Austronesian or Indo-European.