The largest family of Aboriginal Australian languages, comprising 306 of the continent's roughly 400 documented Aboriginal languages and covering most of mainland Australia outside the northern parts of the Northern Territory and Western Australia. Proto-Pama-Nyungan has been reconstructed and computational phylogenetic work suggests the family began expanding from the Gulf Plains of northeastern Australia in the mid-Holocene, perhaps as recently as 5,000 years ago.
Facts
Disputed
Proto-Language StatusProto-Pama-Nyungan is reconstructed via the comparative method and computational phylogenetics, estimated at roughly 5,000 years old. Its status as a valid genetic family has been disputed by Dixon but is accepted by most other specialists. 1 R. M. W. Dixon has argued the family is not a valid genetic group at all and treats Australian languages as a Sprachbund; Hale, Bowern and Atkinson and most other specialists accept the family and its comparative-method reconstruction. Partially Attested
Speaker CountConfirmed: Warlpiri, one of the better-documented Pama-Nyungan languages, had 2,624 speakers per the 2021 census, per the cited source. Open: this is not established as the largest Pama-Nyungan language by speaker count, and no verified combined or largest-language total for Pama-Nyungan as a whole was found in this source; a larger figure sometimes cited for Western Desert language carries a failed-verification flag in the source consulted. RegionMost of mainland Australia, with the exception of northern parts of Northern Territory and Western Australia 1 Connections
Ancestor Of
Ngayarda is a subgroup of the Pama-Nyungan family spoken in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.
Includes
Source Wikipedia: Western Desert Language
Open Questions
Source Wikipedia: Pama-Nyungan Languages
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Pama-Nyungan Languages
Wikimedia FoundationLead and Classification sections
Most of the Pama-Nyungan languages are spoken by small ethnic groups of hundreds of speakers or fewer.
Infobox region field, English Wikipedia article Pama-Nyungan languages
Most of mainland Australia, with the exception of northern parts of Northern Territory and Western Australia
Reconstruction section, English Wikipedia article Pama-Nyungan languages
may have been spoken as recently as about 5,000 years ago, much more recently than the 40,000 to 60,000 years indigenous Australians are believed to have been inhabiting Australia.
View the Source 2. Wikipedia: Warlpiri Language
Wikimedia FoundationInfobox, Speakers fieldQuote, Infobox, Speakers field
2,624 (2021 census)
Wikipedia: Western Desert Language
Wikimedia FoundationIncludes: Western Desert Language, Infobox, language family field (Pama-Nyungan)View the Source Open Questions (1 open question)
How many speakers do the Pama-Nyungan languages total today?
Sources describe most Pama-Nyungan languages as spoken by small ethnic groups of a few hundred speakers or fewer, with almost all remaining ones endangered, but no tertiary source consulted sums these many small communities into a single family-wide total.
What would resolve this An Australian government or AIATSIS-level survey aggregating speaker counts across every living Pama-Nyungan language at one point in time.
Australian Aboriginal linguisticsWikipedia: Pama-Nyungan Languages
Dissenting Readings (1 dissenting reading)
Proto-Language Status
Dixon has argued he could find nothing that reliably sets Pama-Nyungan apart as a valid genetic group, and abandoned the classification in favor of treating Australian languages as a sprachbund shaped by contact and diffusion rather than a family descended from a common ancestor.
A dissenting reading, from R.M.W. DixonWikipedia: Pama-Nyungan Languages, Wikimedia Foundation
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