However, the relationship would be a distant one at best, and Mark Donohue felt in 2001 that Yawa had not been shown to be related to any other language.

[2] Recently Malcolm Ross made a tentative proposal that Yawa might be part of an Extended West Papuan language phylum.

The pronominal resemblances are most apparent when comparing proto-Yawa to the East Bird's Head language Meax: d~r, b~w, we~o, p~f are all common sound correspondences.

In Yawa languages, feminine is delegated mostly for animate nouns with obvious female sexual characteristics.

[1] Basic vocabulary of the Yapen languages Yawa and Saweru listed in Foley (2018).