In 2007, on a Papuan language website, Mark Donohue reported that, :''Murkim [and] Lepki [and] Kembra are, along with a number of other languages, unclassified groups living between the main cordillera and Mt. 6234, in the north of Papua near the PNG border (where 'near' = up to about 6 days' walk). They don't appear to be related to each other, based on wordlists, and they don't appear to show external affiliations.'' However,
Søren Wichmann (2013) found that Murkim and Lepki at least appear to be very closely related, a position accepted by Glottolog.
Foley (2018) classifies them separately as an independent language family. Foley (2018) also classifies
Kembra and
Kembra as isolates, but does not exclude the possibility of their being related to Lepki–Murkim. ==Basic vocabulary==