Based on earlier work, the East and West Pauwasi languages of Indonesia were classified together in Wurm (1975), though he (and later researchers) did not recognize that Yuri (Karkar) of Papua New Guinea was also East Pauwasi.
[3] Karkar-Yuri, long thought to be an isolate in Papua New Guinea, is clearly related and may actually form a dialect continuum with Emumu in Indonesia.
Attested forms include: Yafi and Emumu are similar, and Dubu and Towei may share 1pl *numu, but there is not apparent connection between them.
Stephen Wurm (1975) classified the Western (Indonesian) languages as a branch of the Trans–New Guinea (TNG) phylum, a position which Malcolm Ross (2005) tentatively retained.
He notes that Karkar-Yuri shares some typological similarities with the Trans-New Guinea languages, which could be due to chance, contact, or genetic inheritance.