The Indigenous languages of Australia number in the hundreds, the precise number being quite uncertain, although there is a range of estimates from a minimum of around 250 (using the technical definition of 'language' as non-mutually intelligible varieties) up to possibly 363. The Indigenous languages of Australia comprise numerous
language families
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in hi ...
and
isolates {{About, , the linguistics term dealing with languages unrelated to any other language in the world, Language isolate, other uses, Isolate (disambiguation){{!Isolate
Isolates is a term used in developmental psychology and family studies, to describ ...
, perhaps as many as 13, spoken by the
Indigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...
of mainland Australia and a few nearby islands. The relationships between the language families are not clear at present although there are proposals to link some into larger groupings. Despite this uncertainty, the Indigenous Australian languages are collectively covered by the technical term "Australian languages", or the "Australian family".
The term can include both
Tasmanian languages
The Tasmanian languages were the languages indigenous to the island of Tasmania, used by Aboriginal Tasmanians. The languages were last used for daily communication in the 1830s, although the terminal speaker, Fanny Cochrane Smith, survived unt ...
Meriam Mir
Meriam ( ulk, Meriam Mìr; also ''Miriam, Meryam, Mer, Mir, Miriam-Mir'', etc. and ''Eastern, Isten, Esten'' and ''Able Able'') or the Eastern Torres Strait language is the language of the people of the small islands of ''Mer'' ( Murray Island ...
of the
Torres Strait Islands
The Torres Strait Islands are a group of at least 274 small islands in the Torres Strait, a waterway separating far northern continental Australia's Cape York Peninsula and the island of New Guinea. They span an area of , but their total land ...
, as well as the Papuan Tip Austronesian languages. Most Australian languages belong to the widespread Pama–Nyungan family, while the remainder are classified as "non-Pama–Nyungan", which is a term of convenience that does not imply a genealogical relationship.
In the late 18th century there were more than 250 distinct First Nations Peoples social groupings and a similar number of languages or
varieties
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
. The status and knowledge of Aboriginal languages today varies greatly. Many languages became extinct with settlement as the encroachment of colonial society broke up Indigenous cultures. For some of these languages, few records exist for vocabulary and grammar. At the start of the 21st century, fewer than 150 Aboriginal languages remain in daily use, with the majority being highly
endangered
An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and in ...
. In 2020, 90 per cent of the barely more than 100 languages still spoken are considered endangered. 13 languages are still being transmitted to children. The surviving languages are located in the most isolated areas. Of the five least endangered Western Australian Aboriginal languages, four belong to the Western Desert grouping of the Central and
Great Victoria Desert
The Great Victoria Desert is a sparsely populated desert ecoregion and interim Australian bioregion in Western Australia and South Australia.
History
In 1875, British-born Australian explorer Ernest Giles became the first European to cros ...
.
Yolŋu languages
Yolŋu Matha (), meaning the 'Yolŋu tongue', is a linguistic family that includes the languages of the Yolngu (also known as the Yolŋu and Yuulngu languages), the indigenous people of northeast Arnhem Land in northern Australia. The ''ŋ'' ...
from north-east Arnhem Land are also currently learned by children.
Bilingual education
In bilingual education, students are taught in two (or more) languages. It is distinct from learning a second language as a subject because both languages are used for instruction in different content areas like math, science, and history. The ...
is being used successfully in some communities. Seven of the most widely spoken Australian languages, such as Warlpiri,
Murrinh-patha
The Murrinh-Patha, or Murinbata, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Northern Territory.
Language
Murrinh-Patha language, Murrinh-Patha is spoken by about 2500 people, and serves as a lingua franca for several other ethnic groups, such ...
and Tiwi, retain between 1,000 and 3,000 speakers. Some Indigenous communities and linguists show support for learning programmes either for language revival proper or for only "post-vernacular maintenance" (Indigenous communities having the opportunity to learn some words and concepts related to the lost language).
Living Aboriginal languages
The ''National Indigenous Languages Survey'' is a regular Australia-wide survey of the status of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages conducted in 2005, 2014 and 2019.
Languages with more than 100 speakers:
*
New South Wales
)
, nickname =
, image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates:
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Australia
, established_title = Before federation
, es ...
:
** 3 languages (~ 600):
*** Yugambeh-Bundjalung
****Bundjalung (~ 100)
**** Yugambeh (~ 20; shared with Queensland)
****
Githabul
The Gidabal, also known as ''Kitabal'' and ''Githabul'', are an indigenous Australian tribe of southern Queensland, who inhabited an area in south-east Queensland and north-east New South Wales, now within the Southern Downs Region, Southern Downs, ...
(~ 10; shared with Queensland)
***
Wiradjuri
The Wiradjuri people (; ) are a group of Aboriginal Australian people from central New South Wales, united by common descent through kinship and shared traditions. They survived as skilled hunter-fisher-gatherers, in family groups or clans, a ...
(~ 500)
***
Gamilaraay
The Gamilaraay, also known as Gomeroi, Kamilaroi, Kamillaroi and other variations, are an Aboriginal Australian people whose lands extend from New South Wales to southern Queensland. They form one of the four largest Indigenous nations in Au ...
(~ 100)
*
Victoria
Victoria most commonly refers to:
* Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia
* Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada
* Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory
* Victoria, Seychelle ...
:
** N/A
*
Tasmania
)
, nickname =
, image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates:
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdi ...
:
** N/A
*
South Australia
South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...
:
** 4 languages (~ 3,900):
***
Ngarrindjeri
The Ngarrindjeri people are the traditional Aboriginal Australian people of the lower Murray River, eastern Fleurieu Peninsula, and the Coorong of the southern-central area of the state of South Australia. The term ''Ngarrindjeri'' means "belo ...
Yankunytjatjara
The Yankunytjatjara people, also written Yankuntjatjarra, Jangkundjara, and other variants, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the state of South Australia.
Language
Yankunytjatjara is a Western Desert language belonging to the Wati la ...
(~ 400)
***
Pitjantjatjara
The Pitjantjatjara (; or ) are an Aboriginal people of the Central Australian desert near Uluru. They are closely related to the Yankunytjatjara and Ngaanyatjarra and their languages are, to a large extent, mutually intelligible (all are va ...
(~ 3,100; shared with Northern Territory and Western Australia)
*
Queensland
)
, nickname = Sunshine State
, image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Australia
, established_title = Before federation
, establishe ...
:
** 5 languages (~ 1,800):
***
Kuku Yalanji
The Kuku Yalanji, also known as Gugu-Yalanji, Kuku Yalandji or Kokojelandji, are an Aboriginal Australian people originating from the rainforest regions of Far North Queensland.
Language
The traditional language of the people is Guugu Yala ...
Western Australia
Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...
:
** 17 languages (~ 8,000):
***
Noongar
The Noongar (, also spelt Noongah, Nyungar , Nyoongar, Nyoongah, Nyungah, Nyugah, and Yunga ) are Aboriginal Australian peoples who live in the south-west corner of Western Australia, from Geraldton on the west coast to Esperance on the so ...
Ngaanyatjarra
The Ngaanyatjarra, also known (along with the Pini) as the Nana, are an Indigenous Australian cultural group of Western Australia. They are located in the Goldfields-Esperance region, as well as Northern Territory.
Language
Ngaanyatjarra is ...
Wajarri
The Wajarri people, also spelt Wadjari, Wadjarri, Watjarri, and other variations, are an Aboriginal Australian people whose traditional lands are in the Mid West region of Western Australia.
Boolardy Station, along with the tiny settlement of ...
(~ 100)
***
Pintupi
The Pintupi are an Australian Aboriginal group who are part of the Western Desert cultural group and whose traditional land is in the area west of Lake Macdonald and Lake Mackay in Western Australia. These people moved (or were moved) into ...
(~ 100; shared with Northern Territory)
***
Pitjantjatjara
The Pitjantjatjara (; or ) are an Aboriginal people of the Central Australian desert near Uluru. They are closely related to the Yankunytjatjara and Ngaanyatjarra and their languages are, to a large extent, mutually intelligible (all are va ...
(~3,100; shared with Northern Territory and South Australia)
*** Kukatja (~ 100)
*** Walmatjarri (~ 300)
***
Gooniyandi
The Gooniyandi, also known as the Konejandi, are an indigenous Australian people in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.
Language
Gooniyandi with Bunuba is one of the two languages of the Bunuban language family.
Country
Gooniyandi tra ...
(~ 100)
***
Djaru
The Djaru people are an Aboriginal Australian people of the southern Kimberley region of Western Australia.
Language
Djaru is a member of the Ngumbin language family, and is related to Walmajarri.
Country
The Djaru people ranged along Margar ...
Miriwoong
The Miriwoong people, also written Miriwung and Miriuwung, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Kimberley region of northern Western Australia.
Language
Miriwoong language (AIATSIS "Miriwoong / Miriuwung") is one of the three surviving ...
(~ 200)
*
Northern Territory
The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory shares its borders with Western Aust ...
Upper Arrernte
Arrernte or Aranda (; ) or sometimes referred to as Upper Arrernte (Upper Aranda), is a dialect cluster in the Arandic language group spoken in parts of the Northern Territory, Australia, by the Arrernte people. Other spelling variations are ...
Warumungu
The Warumungu (or Warramunga) are a group of Aboriginal Australians of the Northern Territory. Today, Warumungu are mainly concentrated in the region of Tennant Creek and Alice Springs.
Language
Their language is Warumungu, belonging to th ...
Pintupi
The Pintupi are an Australian Aboriginal group who are part of the Western Desert cultural group and whose traditional land is in the area west of Lake Macdonald and Lake Mackay in Western Australia. These people moved (or were moved) into ...
(~ 100; shared with Western Australia)
***
Pitjantjatjara
The Pitjantjatjara (; or ) are an Aboriginal people of the Central Australian desert near Uluru. They are closely related to the Yankunytjatjara and Ngaanyatjarra and their languages are, to a large extent, mutually intelligible (all are va ...
(~3,100; shared with Western Australia and South Australia)
***
Iwaidja
The Iwaidja are an indigenous Australian people of the Northern Territory.
Name
Norman Tindale states that the name is based on their word for 'no' (''ii'').
Language
Iwaidja is one of the Iwaidjan languages of the Cobourg Peninsula, all of whi ...
Kunwinjku
The Kunwinjku (formerly written Gunwinggu) people are an Australian Aboriginal people, one of several groups within the Bininj people, who live around West Arnhem Land to the east of Darwin, Northern Territory. Kunwinjku people generally refer t ...
(~ 1,800)
*** Burarra (~ 1,000)
*** Dhuwal (~4,200)
*** Djinang (~ 100)
*** Nunggubuyu (~ 300)
*** Anindilyakwa (~ 1,500)
Total 46 languages, 42,300 speakers, with 11 having only approximately 100. 11 languages have over 1,000 speakers.
* Creoles:
** Kriol (~ 20,000)
Classification
Internal
Most Australian languages are commonly held to belong to the Pama–Nyungan family, a family accepted by most linguists, with Robert M. W. Dixon as a notable exception. For convenience, the rest of the languages, all spoken in the far north, are commonly lumped together as "Non-Pama–Nyungan", although this does not necessarily imply that they constitute a valid clade. Dixon argues that after perhaps 40,000 years of mutual influence, it is no longer possible to distinguish deep genealogical relationships from areal features in Australia, and that not even Pama–Nyungan is a valid language family.
However, few other linguists accept Dixon's thesis. For example, Kenneth L. Hale describes Dixon's skepticism as an erroneous phylogenetic assessment which is "such an insult to the eminently successful practitioners of Comparative Method Linguistics in Australia, that it positively demands a decisive riposte". Hale provides pronominal and grammatical evidence (with suppletion) as well as more than fifty basic-vocabulary cognates (showing regular sound correspondences) between the proto-Northern-and-Middle Pamic (pNMP) family of the
Cape York Peninsula
Cape York Peninsula is a large peninsula located in Far North Queensland, Australia. It is the largest unspoiled wilderness in northern Australia.Mittermeier, R.E. et al. (2002). Wilderness: Earth’s last wild places. Mexico City: Agrupació ...
on the Australian northeast coast and proto-Ngayarta of the Australian west coast, some apart, to support the Pama–Nyungan grouping, whose age he compares to that of
Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo- ...
.
Johanna Nichols
Johanna Nichols (born 1945, Iowa City, Iowa) is an American linguist and professor emerita in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of California, Berkeley. She earned her Ph.D. in Linguistics at the University of Ca ...
suggests that the northern families may be relatively recent arrivals from
Maritime Southeast Asia
Maritime Southeast Asia comprises the countries of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and East Timor. Maritime Southeast Asia is sometimes also referred to as Island Southeast Asia, Insular Southeast Asia or Oceanic Sout ...
, perhaps later replaced there by the spread of Austronesian. That could explain the typological difference between Pama–Nyungan and non-Pama–Nyungan languages, but not how a single family came to be so widespread.
Nicholas Evans
Nicholas Benbow Evans (26 July 1950 – 9 August 2022) was a British journalist, screenwriter, television and film producer and novelist.
Biography
Nicholas Benbow Evans was born in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, son of Anthony Evans, director of ...
suggests that the Pama–Nyungan family spread along with the now-dominant Aboriginal culture that includes the
Australian Aboriginal kinship
Aboriginal Australian kinship comprises the systems of Aboriginal customary law governing social interaction relating to kinship in traditional Aboriginal cultures. It is an integral part of the culture of every Aboriginal group across Aust ...
system.
In late 2017, Mark Harvey and Robert Mailhammer published a study in ''Diachronica'' that hypothesised, by analysing
noun class
In linguistics, a noun class is a particular category of nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of the characteristic features of its referent, such as gender, animacy, shape, but such designations are often clearly conventional. Some a ...
prefix paradigms across both Pama-Nyungan and the minority non-Pama-Nyungan languages, that a Proto-Australian could be reconstructed from which all known Australian languages descend. This Proto-Australian language, they concluded, would have been spoken about 12,000 years ago in northern Australia.
External
For a long time unsuccessful attempts were made to detect a link between Australian and Papuan languages, the latter being represented by those spoken on the coastal areas of
New Guinea
New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torr ...
facing the Torres Strait and the
Arafura Sea
The Arafura Sea (or Arafuru Sea) lies west of the Pacific Ocean, overlying the continental shelf between Australia and Western New Guinea (also called Papua), which is the Indonesian part of the Island of New Guinea.
Geography
The Arafura S ...
. In 1986 William A. Foley noted lexical similarities between Robert M. W. Dixon's 1980 reconstruction of proto-Australian and the
East New Guinea Highlands languages
East New Guinea Highlands is a 1960 proposal by Stephen Wurm for a family of Papuan languages spoken in Papua New Guinea that formed part of his 1975 expansion of Trans–New Guinea.Sahul continent) for most of their human history, having been separated by the
Torres Strait
The Torres Strait (), also known as Zenadh Kes, is a strait between Australia and the Melanesian island of New Guinea. It is wide at its narrowest extent. To the south is Cape York Peninsula, the northernmost extremity of the Australian mai ...
only 8000 years ago, and that a deep reconstruction would likely include languages from both. Dixon, in the meantime, later abandoned his proto-Australian proposal.
Maningrida
Maningrida, also known as Manayingkarírra and Manawukan, is an Aboriginal community in the heart of the Arnhem Land region of Australia's Northern Territory. Maningrida is east of Darwin, and north east of Jabiru. It is on the North Central ...
Claire Bowern
Claire Louise Bowern () is a linguist who works with Australian Indigenous languages. She is currently a professor of linguistics at Yale University, and has a secondary appointment in the department of anthropology at Yale.
Career
Bowern re ...
's ''Australian Languages'' (2011), Australian languages divide into approximately 30 primary sub-groups and 5 isolates.
* Presumptive isolates:
** Tiwi
** Giimbiyu (extinct)
** Marrgu (extinct)
**
Wagiman
The Wagiman, also spelt Wagoman, Wagaman, Wogeman, and other variants, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Northern Territory.
Language
The Wagiman language
Wagiman, also spelt Wageman, Wakiman, Wogeman, and other variants, is a near ...
Daly Daly or DALY may refer to:
Places Australia
* County of Daly, a cadastral division in South Australia
* Daly River, Northern Territory, a locality
* Electoral division of Daly, an electorate in the Northern Territory
* Daly, Northern Territory, ...
Macro-Gunwinyguan languages
The Macro-Gunwinyguan languages, also called Arnhem or Gunwinyguan, are a family of Australian Aboriginal languages spoken across eastern Arnhem Land in northern Australia. Their relationship has been demonstrated through shared morphology i ...
Western
Western may refer to:
Places
*Western, Nebraska, a village in the US
*Western, New York, a town in the US
*Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western world, countries that id ...
Northeastern Tasmanian
Northeastern Tasmanian is an aboriginal language family of Tasmania in the reconstruction of Claire Bowern
Claire Louise Bowern () is a linguist who works with Australian Indigenous languages. She is currently a professor of linguistics at Y ...
(extinct)
**
Eastern Tasmanian
Eastern Tasmanian is an aboriginal language family of Tasmania in the reconstruction of Claire Bowern.Claire Bowern, September 2012, "The riddle of Tasmanian languages", ''Proc. R. Soc. B'', 279, 4590–4595,
Languages
Bayesian phylogenet ...
(extinct)
Survival
It has been inferred from the probable number of languages and the estimate of pre-contact population levels that there may have been from 3,000 to 4,000 speakers on average for each of the 250 languages. A number of these languages were almost immediately wiped out within decades of colonisation, the case of the
Aboriginal Tasmanians
The Aboriginal Tasmanians ( Palawa kani: ''Palawa'' or ''Pakana'') are the Aboriginal people of the Australian island of Tasmania, located south of the mainland. For much of the 20th century, the Tasmanian Aboriginal people were widely, an ...
being one notorious example of precipitous linguistic
ethnocide
Ethnocide is the extermination of cultures.
Reviewing the legal and the academic history of the usage of the terms genocide and ethnocide, Bartolomé Clavero differentiates them by stating that "Genocide kills people while ethnocide kills socia ...
. Tasmania had been separated from the mainland at the end of the
Quaternary glaciation
The Quaternary glaciation, also known as the Pleistocene glaciation, is an alternating series of glacial and interglacial periods during the Quaternary period that began 2.58 Ma (million years ago) and is ongoing. Although geologists describ ...
, and Indigenous Tasmanians remained isolated from the outside world for around 12,000 years.
Claire Bowern
Claire Louise Bowern () is a linguist who works with Australian Indigenous languages. She is currently a professor of linguistics at Yale University, and has a secondary appointment in the department of anthropology at Yale.
Career
Bowern re ...
has concluded in a recent study that there were twelve Tasmanian languages, and that those languages are unrelated (that is, not demonstrably related) to those on the Australian mainland.
In 1990 it was estimated that 90 languages still survived of the approximately 250 once spoken, but with a high rate of attrition as elders died out. Of the 90, 70% by 2001 were judged as 'severely endangered' with only 17 spoken by all age groups, a definition of a 'strong' language. On these grounds it is anticipated that despite efforts at linguistic preservation, many of the remaining languages will disappear within the next generation. The overall trend suggests that in the not too distant future all of the Indigenous languages will be lost, perhaps by 2050, and with them the cultural knowledge they convey.
During the period of the
Stolen Generations
The Stolen Generations (also known as Stolen Children) were the children of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent who were removed from their families by the Australian federal and state government agencies and church mis ...
, Aboriginal children were removed from their families and placed in institutions where they were punished for speaking their Indigenous language. Different, mutually unintelligible language groups were often mixed together, with Australian Aboriginal English or
Australian Kriol language
Australian Kriol is an English-based creole language that developed from a pidgin used initially in the region of Sydney and Newcastle in New South Wales, Australia, in the early days of European colonisation. Later, it was spoken by gr ...
as the only lingua franca. The result was a disruption to the inter-generational transmission of these languages that severely impacted their future use. Today, that same transmission of language between parents and grandparents to their children is a key mechanism for reversing language shift. For children, proficiency in the language of their cultural heritage has a positive influence on their ethnic identity formation, and it is thought to be of particular benefit to the emotional well-being of Indigenous children. There is some evidence to suggest that the reversal of the Indigenous language shift may lead to decreased self-harm and suicide rates among Indigenous youth.
The first Aboriginal people to use Australian Aboriginal languages in the Australian parliament were
Aden Ridgeway
Aden Derek Ridgeway (born 18 September 1962) is an Australian former politician.''The Age'' (2006)Present politics Retrieved 6 July 2006. He was a member of the Australian Senate for New South Wales from 1999 to 2005, representing the Australia ...
on 25 August 1999 in the Senate when he said "On this special occasion, I make my presence known as an Aborigine and to this chamber I say, perhaps for the first time: " and in the
House of Representatives
House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...
on 31 August 2016
Linda Burney
Linda Jean Burney (born 25 April 1957) is an Australian politician and is an Australian Labor Party member of the Australian House of Representatives, representing Barton since the 2016 federal election. She is Minister for Indigenous Australi ...
gave an acknowledgment of country in Wiradjuri in her first speech and was sung in by Lynette Riley in Wiradjuri from the public gallery.
Preservation measures
2019 was the
International Year of Indigenous Languages
The International Year of Indigenous Languages was a United Nations observance in 2019 that aimed to raise awareness of the consequences of the endangerment of Indigenous languages across the world, with an aim to establish a link between languag ...
(IYIL2019), as declared by the
United Nations General Assembly
The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; french: link=no, Assemblée générale, AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as the main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ of the UN. Curr ...
. The commemoration was used to raise awareness of and support for the preservation of Aboriginal languages within Australia, including spreading knowledge about the importance of each language to the identity and knowledge of Indigenous groups. Warrgamay/Girramay man Troy Wyles-Whelan joined the North Queensland Regional Aboriginal Corporation Language Centre (NQRACLC) in 2008, and has been contributing oral histories and the results of his own research to their database. As part of the efforts to raise awareness of
Wiradjuri language
Wiradjuri (; many other spellings, see Wiradjuri) is a Pama–Nyungan language of the Wiradhuric subgroup. It is the traditional language of the Wiradjuri people of Australia. A progressive revival is underway, with the language being taught ...
a ''Grammar of Wiradjuri language'' was published in 2014 and ''A new Wiradjuri dictionary'' in 2010.
The New South Wales '' Aboriginal Languages Act 2017'' became law on 24 October 2017. It was the first legislation in Australia to acknowledge the significance of first languages.
In 2019 the
Royal Australian Mint
The Royal Australian Mint is the sole producer of all of Australia's circulating coins and is a Commonwealth Government entity operating within the portfolio of the Treasury. The Mint is situated in the Australian federal capital city of Canberr ...
issued a 50-cent coin to celebrate the International Year of Indigenous Languages which features 14 different words for "money" from Australian Indigenous languages. The coin was designed by Aleksandra Stokic in consultation with Indigenous language custodian groups.
The work of digitising and transcribing many word lists created by ethnographer Daisy Bates in the 1900s at Daisy Bates Online provides a valuable resource for those researching especially
Western Australia
Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...
n languages, and some languages of the
Northern Territory
The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory shares its borders with Western Aust ...
and
South Australia
South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...
. The project is co-ordinated by Nick Thieberger, who works in collaboration with the
National Library of Australia
The National Library of Australia (NLA), formerly the Commonwealth National Library and Commonwealth Parliament Library, is the largest reference library in Australia, responsible under the terms of the ''National Library Act 1960'' for "mainta ...
"to have all the microfilmed images from Section XII of the Bates papers digitised". The project is succeeded by the Nyingarn Project
, which digitises manuscripts and crowdsources transcriptions through DigiVol.
Language revival
In recent decades, there have been attempts to revive indigenous languages. Significant challenges exist, however, for the revival of languages in the dominant English language culture of Australia.
The
Kaurna language
Kaurna ( or ) is a Pama-Nyungan language historically spoken by the Kaurna peoples of the Adelaide Plains of South Australia. The Kaurna peoples are made up of various tribal clan groups, each with their own ''parnkarra'' district of land and ...
, spoken by the
Kaurna
The Kaurna people (, ; also Coorna, Kaura, Gaurna and other variations) are a group of Aboriginal people whose traditional lands include the Adelaide Plains of South Australia. They were known as the Adelaide tribe by the early settlers. Kaurn ...
people of the Adelaide plains, has been the subject of a concerted revival movement since the 1980s, coordinated by
Kaurna Warra Pintyanthi
The University of Adelaide (informally Adelaide University) is a public research university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third-oldest university in Australia. The university's main campus is located on N ...
, a unit working out of the
University of Adelaide
The University of Adelaide (informally Adelaide University) is a public research university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third-oldest university in Australia. The university's main campus is located on N ...
. The language had rapidly disappeared after the settlement of South Australia and the breaking up of local indigenous people. Ivaritji, the last known speaker of the language, died in 1931. However, a substantial number of primary source records existed for the language, from which the language was reconstructed.
Common features
"Some Aboriginal people distinguish between ''usership'' and ''ownership''. There are even those who claim that they own a language although they only know one single word of it: its name."
Whether it is due to genetic unity or some other factor such as occasional contact, typologically the Australian languages form a language area or '' Sprachbund'', sharing much of their vocabulary and many distinctive
phonological
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
features across the entire continent.
A common feature of many Australian languages is that they display so-called
avoidance speech
Avoidance speech is a group of sociolinguistic phenomena in which a special restricted speech style must be used in the presence of or in reference to certain relatives. Avoidance speech is found in many Australian Aboriginal languages and Aust ...
, special speech registers used only in the presence of certain close relatives. These registers share the phonology and
grammar
In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraints, a field that includes domain ...
of the standard language, but the lexicon is different and usually very restricted. There are also commonly speech
taboo
A taboo or tabu is a social group's ban, prohibition, or avoidance of something (usually an utterance or behavior) based on the group's sense that it is excessively repulsive, sacred, or allowed only for certain persons.''Encyclopædia Britannica ...
s during extended periods of mourning or initiation that have led to numerous
Aboriginal sign languages
Many Australian Aboriginal cultures have or traditionally had a manually coded language, a signed counterpart of their oral language. This appears to be connected with various speech taboos between certain kin or at particular times, such as ...
.
For
morphosyntactic alignment
In linguistics, morphosyntactic alignment is the grammatical relationship between arguments—specifically, between the two arguments (in English, subject and object) of transitive verbs like ''the dog chased the cat'', and the single argument ...
absolutive case
In grammar, the absolutive case (abbreviated ) is the case of nouns in ergative–absolutive languages that would generally be the subjects of intransitive verbs or the objects of transitive verbs in the translational equivalents of nominative ...
systems. These are typically
split
Split(s) or The Split may refer to:
Places
* Split, Croatia, the largest coastal city in Croatia
* Split Island, Canada, an island in the Hudson Bay
* Split Island, Falkland Islands
* Split Island, Fiji, better known as Hạfliua
Arts, entertai ...
systems; a widespread pattern is for
pronoun
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase.
Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not c ...
third person
Third person, or third-person, may refer to:
* Third person (grammar), a point of view (in English, ''he'', ''she'', ''it'', and ''they'')
** Illeism, the act of referring to oneself in the third person
* Third-person narrative, a perspective in p ...
animate
Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anima ...
and inanimate are also found. In some languages the persons in between the accusative and ergative inflections (such as second person, or third-person human) may be
tripartite
Tripartite means composed of or split into three parts, or refers to three parties. Specifically, it may also refer to any of the following:
* 3 (number)
* Tripartite language
* Tripartite motto
* Tripartite System in British education
* Triparti ...
: that is, marked overtly as either ergative or accusative in transitive clauses, but not marked as either in
intransitive
In grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb whose context does not entail a direct object. That lack of transitivity distinguishes intransitive verbs from transitive verbs, which entail one or more objects. Additionally, intransitive verbs ar ...
clauses. There are also a few languages which employ only nominative–accusative case marking.
Phonetics and phonology
The following represents a canonical 6-place Australian Aboriginal consonant system. It doesn't represent any single language, but is instead a simplified form of the consonant inventory of what would be found in many Australian languages, including most Arandic and
Yolŋu
The Yolngu or Yolŋu () are an aggregation of Aboriginal Australian people inhabiting north-eastern Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory of Australia. ''Yolngu'' means "person" in the Yolŋu languages. The terms Murngin, Wulamba, Yalnumata, ...
languages.
Segmental inventory
A typical Australian phonological inventory includes just three vowels, usually , which may occur in both long and short variants. In a few cases the has been
unrounded
In phonetics, vowel roundedness is the amount of rounding in the lips during the articulation of a vowel. It is labialization of a vowel. When a ''rounded'' vowel is pronounced, the lips form a circular opening, and ''unrounded'' vowels are pro ...
to give .
There is almost never a voicing contrast; that is, a consonant may sound like a at the beginning of a word, but like a between vowels, and either letter could be (and often is) chosen to represent it. Australia also stands out as being almost entirely free of fricative consonants, even of . In the few cases where fricatives do occur, they developed recently through the
lenition
In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonorous. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language at a pa ...
(weakening) of stops, and are therefore non-sibilants like rather than the sibilants like that are common elsewhere in the world. Some languages also have three
rhotics
In phonetics, rhotic consonants, or "R-like" sounds, are liquid consonants that are traditionally represented orthographically by symbols derived from the Greek letter rho, including , in the Latin script and , in the Cyrillic script. They ...
, typically a
flap
Flap may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* ''Flap'' (film), a 1970 American film
* Flap, a boss character in the arcade game ''Gaiapolis''
* Flap, a minor character in the film '' Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland''
Biology and he ...
, a
trill
TRILL (Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links) is an Internet Standard implemented by devices called TRILL switches. TRILL combines techniques from bridging and routing, and is the application of link-state routing to the VLAN-aware cus ...
, and an approximant (that is, like the combined rhotics of English and Spanish) and many have four laterals.
Besides the lack of fricatives, the most striking feature of Australian speech sounds is the large number of
places of articulation
In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a consonant is a location along the vocal tract where its production occurs. It is a point where a constriction is made between an active and a passive articula ...
. Some 10-15% of Australian languages have four places of articulation, with two coronal places of articulation, 40-50% have five places, and 40-45% have six places of articulation, including four coronals. In contrast, the overwhelming majority of languages worldwide have only one coronal place of articulation. The four-way distinction in the coronal region is commonly accomplished through two variables: the position of the tongue (front, alveolar or dental, or
retroflex
A retroflex (Help:IPA/English, /ˈɹɛtʃɹoːflɛks/), apico-domal (Help:IPA/English, /əpɪkoːˈdɔmɪnəl/), or cacuminal () consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated betw ...
), and its shape (
apical
Apical means "pertaining to an apex". It may refer to:
*Apical ancestor, refers to the last common ancestor of an entire group, such as a species (biology) or a clan (anthropology)
*Apical (anatomy), an anatomical term of location for features loc ...
or
laminal
A laminal consonant is a phone (speech sound) produced by obstructing the air passage with the blade of the tongue, the flat top front surface just behind the tip of the tongue in contact
with upper lip, teeth, alveolar ridge, to possibly, as ...
).
There are also
bilabial
In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a labial consonant articulated with both lips.
Frequency
Bilabial consonants are very common across languages. Only around 0.7% of the world's languages lack bilabial consonants altogether, including Tli ...
,
velar
Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum).
Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive a ...
and often
palatal consonant
Palatals are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth). Consonants with the tip of the tongue curled back against the palate are called retroflex.
Characteris ...
s, but a complete absence of
uvular consonant
Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be stops, fricatives, nasals, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not p ...
nasals
In phonetics, a nasal, also called a nasal occlusive or nasal stop in contrast with an oral stop or nasalized consonant, is an occlusive consonant produced with a lowered velum, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The vast majorit ...
occur at all six places, and in many languages laterals occur at all four coronal places.
According to , the unusual segmental inventories of Australian languages may be due to the very high presence of
otitis media
Otitis media is a group of inflammatory diseases of the middle ear. One of the two main types is acute otitis media (AOM), an infection of rapid onset that usually presents with ear pain. In young children this may result in pulling at the ear, ...
ear infections and resulting hearing loss in their populations. People with hearing loss often have trouble distinguishing different vowels and hearing fricatives and voicing contrasts. Australian Aboriginal languages thus seem to show similarities to the speech of people with hearing loss, and avoid those sounds and distinctions which are difficult for people with early childhood hearing loss to perceive. At the same time, Australian languages make full use of those distinctions, namely place of articulation distinctions, which people with otitis media-caused hearing loss can perceive more easily.
A language which displays the full range of stops, nasals and laterals is
Kalkatungu
The Kalkadoon (properly Kalkatungu) are descendants of an Indigenous Australian tribe living in the Mount Isa region of Queensland. Their forefather tribe has been called "the elite of the Aboriginal warriors of Queensland". In 1884 they were ma ...
, which has labial ''p, m''; "dental" ''th, nh, lh''; "alveolar" ''t, n, l''; "retroflex" ''rt, rn, rl''; "palatal" ''ty, ny, ly''; and velar ''k, ng''. Wangganguru has all this, as well as three rhotics. Yanyuwa has even more contrasts, with an additional true dorso-palatal series, plus
prenasalised consonant
Prenasalized consonants are phonetic sequences of a nasal and an obstruent (or occasionally a non-nasal sonorant such as ) that behave phonologically like single consonants. The primary reason for considering them to be single consonants, rather ...
s at all ''seven'' places of articulation, in addition to all four laterals.
A notable exception to the above generalisations is
Kalaw Lagaw Ya
''Kalau Lagau Ya'', ''Kalaw Lagaw Ya'', ''Kala Lagaw Ya'' (), or the ''Western Torres Strait language'' (also several other names, see below), is the language indigenous to the central and western Torres Strait Islands, Queensland, Australia. O ...
, spoken in the
Torres Strait Islands
The Torres Strait Islands are a group of at least 274 small islands in the Torres Strait, a waterway separating far northern continental Australia's Cape York Peninsula and the island of New Guinea. They span an area of , but their total land ...
, which has an inventory more like its Papuan neighbours than the languages of the Australian mainland, including full voice contrasts: , dental , alveolar , the sibilants (which have allophonic variation with and respectively) and velar , as well as only one rhotic, one lateral and three nasals (labial, dental and velar) in contrast to the 5 places of articulation of stops/sibilants. Where vowels are concerned, it has 8 vowels with some morpho-syntactic as well as phonemic length contrasts (, , , , , , , ), and glides that distinguish between those that are in origin vowels, and those that in origin are consonants. Kunjen and other neighbouring languages have also developed contrasting
aspirated consonant
In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of breath that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. In English, aspirated consonants are allophones in complementary distribution with t ...
s (, , , , ) not found further south.
Coronal consonants
Descriptions of the coronal articulations can be inconsistent.
The alveolar series ''t, n, l'' (or ''d, n, l'') is straightforward: across the continent, these sounds are alveolar (that is, pronounced by touching the tongue to the ridge just behind the gum line of the upper teeth) and
apical
Apical means "pertaining to an apex". It may refer to:
*Apical ancestor, refers to the last common ancestor of an entire group, such as a species (biology) or a clan (anthropology)
*Apical (anatomy), an anatomical term of location for features loc ...
(that is, touching that ridge with the tip of the tongue). This is very similar to English ''t, d, n, l'', though the Australian ''t'' is not aspirated, even in Kalaw Lagaw Ya, despite its other stops being aspirated.
The other apical series is the retroflex, ''rt, rn, rl'' (or ''rd, rn, rl''). Here the place is further back in the mouth, in the postalveolar or prepalatal region. The articulation is actually most commonly subapical; that is, the tongue curls back so that the ''underside'' of the tip makes contact. That is, they are true
retroflex consonant
A retroflex ( /ˈɹɛtʃɹoːflɛks/), apico-domal ( /əpɪkoːˈdɔmɪnəl/), or cacuminal () consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the h ...
s. It has been suggested that subapical pronunciation is characteristic of more careful speech, while these sounds tend to be apical in rapid speech. Kalaw Lagaw Ya and many other languages in North Queensland differ from most other Australian languages in not having a retroflexive series.
The dental series ''th, nh, lh'' are always
laminal
A laminal consonant is a phone (speech sound) produced by obstructing the air passage with the blade of the tongue, the flat top front surface just behind the tip of the tongue in contact
with upper lip, teeth, alveolar ridge, to possibly, as ...
(that is, pronounced by touching with the surface of the tongue just above the tip, called the ''blade'' of the tongue), but may be formed in one of three different ways, depending on the language, on the speaker, and on how carefully the speaker pronounces the sound. These are
interdental
Interdental consonants are produced by placing the tip of the tongue between the upper and lower front teeth. That differs from dental consonants, which are articulated with the tongue against the ''back'' of the upper incisors. No language is kn ...
with the tip of the tongue visible between the teeth, as in ''th'' in English; dental with the tip of the tongue down behind the lower teeth, so that the blade is visible between the teeth; and
denti-alveolar
In linguistics, a denti-alveolar consonant or dento-alveolar consonant is a consonant that is articulated with a flat tongue against the alveolar ridge and the upper teeth, such as and in languages such as French, Italian and Spanish. That is, ...
, that is, with both the tip and the blade making contact with the back of the upper teeth and alveolar ridge, as in French ''t, d, n, l''. The first tends to be used in careful enunciation, and the last in more rapid speech, while the tongue-down articulation is less common.
Finally, the palatal series ''ty, ny, ly''. (The stop is often spelled ''dj'', ''tj'', or ''j''.) Here the contact is also laminal, but further back, spanning the alveolar to postalveolar, or the postalveolar to prepalatal regions. The tip of the tongue is typically down behind the lower teeth. This is similar to the "closed" articulation of Circassian fricatives (see
Postalveolar consonant
Postalveolar or post-alveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the ''back'' of the alveolar ridge. Articulation is farther back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but n ...
). The body of the tongue is raised towards the
palate
The palate () is the roof of the mouth in humans and other mammals. It separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity.
A similar structure is found in crocodilians, but in most other tetrapods, the oral and nasal cavities are not truly separ ...
. This is similar to the "domed" English postalveolar fricative ''sh''. Because the tongue is "peeled" from the roof of the mouth from back to front during the release of these stops, there is a fair amount of frication, giving the ''ty'' something of the impression of the English palato-alveolaraffricate ''ch'' or the
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles
Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...
alveolo-palatal
In phonetics, alveolo-palatal (or alveopalatal) consonants, sometimes synonymous with pre-palatal consonants, are intermediate in articulation between the coronal and dorsal consonants, or which have simultaneous alveolar and palatal artic ...
affricate ''ć''. That is, these consonants are not
palatal
The palate () is the roof of the mouth in humans and other mammals. It separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity.
A similar structure is found in crocodilians, but in most other tetrapods, the oral and nasal cavities are not truly separ ...
in the IPA sense of the term, and indeed they contrast with true palatals in Yanyuwa. In Kalaw Lagaw Ya, the palatal consonants are sub-phonemes of the alveolar sibilants and .
These descriptions do not apply exactly to all Australian languages, as the notes regarding Kalaw Lagaw Ya demonstrate. However, they do describe most of them, and are the expected norm against which languages are compared.
Phonotactics
Some have suggested that the most appropriate unit to describe the phonotactics of Australian languages is the phonological word. The most common word length is two syllables, and a typical phonological word would have the form:
(C)VC(C)V(C)
with the first syllable being stressed. The optionality of C is cross-linguistically normal, since coda consonants are weak or nonexistent in many languages, as well as in the early stages of language acquisition. The weakening of C, on the other hand, is very unusual. No Australian language has
consonant cluster
In linguistics, a consonant cluster, consonant sequence or consonant compound, is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word ''splits''. In the education fie ...
s in this position, and those languages with fortis and lenis distinctions do not make such distinctions in this position. Place of articulation distinctions are also less common in this position, and
lenition
In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonorous. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language at a pa ...
s and deletions are historically common here. While in most languages the word-initial position is prominent, maintaining all a language's contrasts, that is not the case in Australia. Here the prominent position is C(C), in the middle of the word. C is typically the only position allowing all of a language's place of articulation contrasts. Fortis/lenis contrasts can only occur at C, or at C when C is a sonorant. Consonant clusters are often restricted to the C(C) position, and are most commonly sonorant + obstruent sequences. In languages with pre-stopped nasals or laterals, those sounds only occur at C.
Australian languages typically resist certain connected speech processes which might blur the place of articulation of consonants at C(C), such as anticipatory assimilation of place of articulation, which is common around the world. In Australia, this type of assimilation seems only to have affected consonants within the apical and laminal categories. There's little evidence of assimilation between the labial, apical, laminal, and dorsal categories. Many proto-Pama–Nyungan and clusters have been preserved across Australia. Heterorganic nasal + stop sequences remain stable even in modern connected speech, which is highly unusual.
The anticipatory assimilation of nasality is quite common in various languages around the world. Typically, a vowel will become
nasalized
In phonetics, nasalization (or nasalisation) is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered, so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by the mouth. An archetypal nasal sound is .
In the Internationa ...
before a following nasal consonant. However, this process is resisted in Australian languages.
There was a historical process in many languages where nasal + stop CC clusters lost the nasal element if C was a nasal. Also, many languages have morphophonemic alterations whereby initial nasals in suffixes are denasalized if the preceding stem contains a nasal consonant.
While the existence of phonemic pre-stopped nasals and laterals, contrasting with plain nasals and laterals, has been documented in some Australian languages, nasals and laterals are pre-stopped on a phonetic level in most languages of the continent. These phenomena are the result of a general resistance to the anticipatory assimilation of nasality and laterality. The lack of assimilation makes coda nasals and laterals more acoustically distinct.
Most speakers of Australian languages speak with a 'pressed'
voice quality
The term phonation has slightly different meanings depending on the subfield of phonetics. Among some phoneticians, ''phonation'' is the process by which the vocal folds produce certain sounds through quasi-periodic vibration. This is the defin ...
, with the glottal opening narrower than in modal voice, a relatively high frequency of
creaky voice
In linguistics, creaky voice (sometimes called laryngealisation, pulse phonation, vocal fry, or glottal fry) refers to a low, scratchy sound that occupies the vocal range below the common vocal register. It is a special kind of phonation in which ...
, and low airflow. This may be due to an avoidance of
breathy voice
Breathy voice (also called murmured voice, whispery voice, soughing and susurration) is a phonation in which the vocal folds vibrate, as they do in normal (modal) voicing, but are adjusted to let more air escape which produces a sighing-like ...
. This pressed quality could therefore serve to enhance the clarity of speech and ensure the perception of place of articulation distinctions.
The weakness of initial consonants in Australian Aboriginal languages is characteristic of hearing-impaired speech, and has been speculated to be the result of high rates of Otitis media-caused hearing loss in Aboriginal communities. Other characteristics of Australian Aboriginal languages' phonotactics, such as their avoidance of assimilation and the pressed voice quality, may be due to the result of strategies to fully exploit all the restricted auditory space caused by hearing loss and to preserve all of the place distinctions.
Orthography
Probably every Australian language with speakers remaining has had an orthography developed for it, in each case in the
Latin script
The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern I ...
. Sounds not found in English are usually represented by digraphs, or more rarely by
diacritic
A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...
s, such as underlines, or extra symbols, sometimes borrowed from the
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation ...
. Some examples are shown in the following table.
Demographics (2016)
In the Northern Territory, 62.5% of Aboriginal Australians spoke an indigenous language at home in 2016. In Queensland, almost 95% of Torres Strait Islanders spoke an indigenous language at home in 2016.
Notable linguists
A number of linguists and ethnographers have contributed greatly to the sum of knowledge about Australian languages. Of particular note are:
*
Barry Blake
Barry Blake, born 1937, is an Australian linguist, specializing in the description of Australian Aboriginal languages. He is a professor emeritus at La Trobe University Melbourne.
Career
Blake was born in the northern Melbourne suburb of Ascot V ...
*
Claire Bowern
Claire Louise Bowern () is a linguist who works with Australian Indigenous languages. She is currently a professor of linguistics at Yale University, and has a secondary appointment in the department of anthropology at Yale.
Career
Bowern re ...
*
Gavan Breen
Gavan Breen (born 22 January 1935), OAM, also known as J.G. Breen, is an Australian linguist, specialising in the description of Australian Aboriginal languages. He has studied and recorded 49 such languages.
Life Early life
Breen was born at ...
*
Arthur Capell
Arthur Capell (28 March 1902 – 10 August 1986) was an Australian linguist, who made major contributions to the study of Australian languages, Austronesian languages and Papuan languages.
Early life
Capell was born in Newtown, New South Wales ...
*
R. M. W. Dixon
Robert Malcolm Ward "Bob" Dixon (born 25 January 1939, in Gloucester, England) is a Professor of Linguistics in the College of Arts, Society, and Education and The Cairns Institute, James Cook University, Queensland. He is also Deputy Director o ...
Margaret Heffernan
Margaret Heffernan (born 1955) is an entrepreneur, CEO, writer and keynote speaker. She is currently a professor of Practice at the University of Bath School of Management in the UK.
Heffernan is the former chief executive officer of five busin ...
*
Luise Hercus
Luise Anna Hercus , , (16 January 1926 – 15 April 2018) was a German-born linguist who lived in Australia from 1954. After significant early work on Middle Indo-Aryan dialects (Prakrits) she had specialised in Australian Aboriginal languages si ...
Nicholas Evans
Nicholas Benbow Evans (26 July 1950 – 9 August 2022) was a British journalist, screenwriter, television and film producer and novelist.
Biography
Nicholas Benbow Evans was born in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, son of Anthony Evans, director of ...
Aboriginal Australians
Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Isl ...
*
Australian Aboriginal sign languages
Many Australian Aboriginal cultures have or traditionally had a manually coded language, a signed counterpart of their oral language. This appears to be connected with various speech taboos between certain kin or at particular times, such as ...
*
List of Aboriginal Australian group names
This list of Australian Aboriginal group names includes names and collective designations which have been applied, either currently or in the past, to groups of Aboriginal Australians. The list does not include Torres Strait Islander peoples, wh ...
*
List of Australian Aboriginal languages
There are numerous Australian Aboriginal languages and dialects, many of which are endangered. An endangered language is one that it is at risk of falling out of use, generally because it has few surviving speakers. If it loses all of its nativ ...
*
List of Aboriginal languages of New South Wales
Prior to colonisation in 1788, the Aboriginal Australians living in the areas now known as New South Wales spoke between 35 - 40 languages including between 70 - 100 dialects. Some of these languages are closely related, many are no longer spoken ...
*
List of Australian place names of Aboriginal origin
Place names in Australia have names originating in the Australian Aboriginal languages for three main reasons:
* Historically, European explorers and surveyors may have asked local Aboriginal people the name of a place, and named it according ...
*
List of endangered languages with mobile apps
This is a list of endangered languages with mobile apps available for use in language revitalization.
Endangered Australian languages with mobile apps
*The Living Archive of Aboriginal Languages (LAAL) is a digital archive of literature in end ...
*
List of reduplicated Australian place names
These names are examples of reduplication, a common theme in Australian toponymy, especially in names derived from Indigenous Australian languages such as Wiradjuri. Reduplication is often used as an intensifier such as "Wagga Wagga" ''many ...
*
Living Archive of Aboriginal Languages
The Living Archive of Aboriginal Languages (LAAL) is a digital archive of literature in endangered languages of Australia, containing works in over forty Australian Aboriginal languages from the Northern Territory, Australia. The project to bui ...
*
Macro-Gunwinyguan languages
The Macro-Gunwinyguan languages, also called Arnhem or Gunwinyguan, are a family of Australian Aboriginal languages spoken across eastern Arnhem Land in northern Australia. Their relationship has been demonstrated through shared morphology i ...
*
Macro-Pama–Nyungan languages
Macro-Pama-Nyungan is an umbrella term used to refer to a proposed Indigenous Australian language family. It was coined by the Australian linguist Nicholas Evans in his 1996 book ''Archaeology and linguistics: Aboriginal Australia in global pers ...
Notes
Citations
Sources
*
* Bowern, C. 2011 Oxford Bibliographies Online: Australian Languages
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
* *
*
*
* McConvell, Patrick & Claire Bowern. 2011. The prehistory and internal relationships of Australian languages. Language and Linguistics Compass 5(1). 19–32.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*