Nek speakers live in half a dozen villages in the Morobe province of Papua New Guinea, on the southern slopes of the Saruwaged Range, about 45 km NW of Lae, north of the Nawaeb district government center in Boana. There are also Nek speakers living in various urban centers around the country, though primarily in Lae.
Nek is a Papuan language with two dialects, eastern and western. It is one of the four languages in the Wain subfamily of the Erap language family, in the Finisterre-Huon stock. Of these four languages, Nuk is east of Nek, Nakama to the south, and Numanggang southwest of Nek.
According to oral tradition, the Nek people lived on the coast where the port city of Lae is now located. For various reasons, they migrated to their present area over the years and generations. According to the 1978 census, they numbered 1257, but in the past 40+ years, the population had at least trebled.
Since there are no written records of the earlier times, very little is known of the Nek people until the arrival of the first Lutheran evangelists and missionaries in the area in the early 1930s. They were welcomed by the Nek people, who embraced their message of God’s love, and the Nek church was born. Until the spread of Tok Pisin, Kâte was the main language used in church for many years.
The Flag of the Province Morobe, is where the Nek people are located.
