The Pama–Nyungan languages () are the most widespread
family
Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...
of
Australian Aboriginal languages
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 intellig ...
, containing 306 out of 400 Aboriginal languages in Australia. The name "Pama–Nyungan" is a
merism
Merism (, ) is a rhetorical device (or figure of speech) in which a combination of two ''contrasting parts'' of the whole refer to the whole.
For example, in order to say that someone "searched everywhere", one could use the merism "searched hig ...
: it is derived from the two end-points of the range, the
Pama languages of northeast Australia (where the word for 'man' is ) and the
Nyungan languages of southwest Australia (where the word for 'man' is ).
The other language families indigenous to the continent of Australia are often referred to, by exclusion, as non-Pama–Nyungan languages, though this is not a taxonomic term. The Pama–Nyungan family accounts for most of the geographic spread, most of the Aboriginal population, and the greatest number of languages. Most of the Pama–Nyungan languages are spoken by small ethnic groups of hundreds of speakers or fewer. Many languages have become extinct, and almost all remaining ones are endangered in some way. Only in the central inland portions of the continent do Pama–Nyungan languages remain spoken vigorously by the entire community.
The first descriptions of languages from this family date to missionary grammars from the early 19th century,
[
] but the Pama–Nyungan family itself was identified and named only by
Kenneth L. Hale, in his work on the classification of Native Australian languages. Hale's research led him to the conclusion that of the Aboriginal Australian languages, one relatively closely interrelated family had spread and proliferated over most of the continent, while approximately a dozen other families were concentrated along the North coast.
Typology
Evans and McConvell describe typical Pama–Nyungan languages such as Warlpiri as
dependent-marking A dependent-marking language has grammatical markers of agreement and case government between the words of phrases that tend to appear more on dependents than on heads. The distinction between head-marking and dependent-marking was first explored ...
and exclusively suffixing languages which lack gender, while noting that some non-Pama–Nyungan languages such as
Tangkic share this typology and some Pama–Nyungan languages like
Yanyuwa, a head-marking and prefixing language with a complicated gender system, diverge from it.
Reconstruction
Proto-Pama–Nyungan 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
Indigenous Australians are people with familial heritage from, or recognised membership of, the various ethnic groups living within the territory of contemporary Australia prior to History of Australia (1788–1850), British colonisation. The ...
are believed to have been inhabiting
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
. How the Pama–Nyungan languages spread over most of the continent and displaced any pre-Pama–Nyungan languages is uncertain; one possibility is that language could have been transferred from one group to another alongside
culture
Culture ( ) is a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and Social norm, norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, Social norm, customs, capabilities, Attitude (psychology), attitudes ...
and
ritual
A ritual is a repeated, structured sequence of actions or behaviors that alters the internal or external state of an individual, group, or environment, regardless of conscious understanding, emotional context, or symbolic meaning. Traditionally ...
. Given the relationship of cognates between groups, it seems that Pama–Nyungan has many of the characteristics of a
sprachbund
A sprachbund (, from , 'language federation'), also known as a linguistic area, area of linguistic convergence, or diffusion area, is a group of languages that share areal features resulting from geographical proximity and language contact. Th ...
, indicating the antiquity of multiple waves of culture contact between groups. Dixon in particular has argued that the genealogical trees found with many language families do not fit in the Pama–Nyungan family.

Using
computational phylogenetics
Computational phylogenetics, phylogeny inference, or phylogenetic inference focuses on computational and optimization algorithms, Heuristic (computer science), heuristics, and approaches involved in Phylogenetics, phylogenetic analyses. The goal i ...
, posit a mid-
Holocene
The Holocene () is the current geologic time scale, geological epoch, beginning approximately 11,700 years ago. It follows the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene to ...
expansion of Pama–Nyungan from the
Gulf Plains of northeastern Australia.
Phonotactics
Pama–Nyungan languages generally share several broad phonotactic constraints: single-consonant onsets, a lack of fricatives, and a prohibition against
liquids
Liquid is a state of matter with a definite volume but no fixed shape. Liquids adapt to the shape of their container and are nearly incompressible, maintaining their volume even under pressure. The density of a liquid is usually close to th ...
(laterals and rhotics) beginning words. Voiced fricatives have developed in several scattered languages, such as
Anguthimri, though often the sole alleged fricative is and is analysed as an approximant by other linguists. An exception is
Kala Lagaw Ya, which acquired both fricatives and a voicing contrast in them and in its plosives from contact with
Papuan languages
The Papuan languages are the non- Austronesian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea, as well as neighbouring islands in Indonesia, Solomon Islands, and East Timor. It is a strictly geographical grouping, and does not imply ...
. Several of the languages of
Victoria allowed initial , and one—
Gunai—also allowed initial and consonant clusters and , a trait shared with the extinct
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 u ...
across the Bass Strait.
Classification
At the time of the European arrival in Australia, there were some 300 Pama–Nyungan languages divided across three dozen branches. What follows are the languages listed in and ; numbers in parentheses are the numbers of languages in each branch. These vary from languages so distinct they are difficult to demonstrate as being in the same branch, to near-dialects on par with the differences between the
Scandinavian languages
The North Germanic languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages—a sub-family of the Indo-European languages—along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages. The language group is al ...
.
Traditional conservative classification
Down the east coast, from
Cape York to the
Bass Strait
Bass Strait () is a strait separating the island state of Tasmania from the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland (more specifically the coast of Victoria (Australia), Victoria, with the exception of the land border across Boundary Islet). The ...
, there are:
*''
Kala Lagaw Ya'' (1)
*
Paman (41)
*''
Yidiny'' (1)
*
Dyirbalic (5)
*
Maric (26)
*
Waka–Kabic (5)
*
Durubulic (5)
*
Bandjalangic (4)
*
Gumbaynggiric (2)
*''
Anewan'' (Nganyaywana) (1)
*
Wiradhuric (Central NSW; inland of Yuin–Kuric) (5)
*
Yuin–Kuric (14)
*
Gippsland
Gippsland () is a rural region in the southeastern part of Victoria, Australia, mostly comprising the coastal plains south of the Victorian Alps (the southernmost section of the Great Dividing Range). It covers an elongated area of east of th ...
(5)
Continuing along the south coast, from Melbourne to Perth:
*
Yotayotic (somewhat inland) (2)
*
Kulinic (13)
*
Lower Murray (9)
*
Thura-Yura (8)
*
Mirniny (2)
*
Nyungic (SW) (11)
Up the west coast:
*
Kartu (5)
*
Kanyara–Mantharta (8)
*
Ngayarta (12)
*
Marrngu (3)
Cutting inland back to Paman, south of the northern non-Pama–Nyungan languages, are
*
Ngumpin–Yapa (10)
*''
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, Northern Territory, Tennant Creek and Alice Springs. Warumungu language call ...
'' (1)
*
Warluwaric (5)
*
Kalkatungic (2)
*
Mayi (Mayabic) (7)
Encircled by these branches are:
*
Wati (15), the large inland expanse in the west
*
Arandic (9), in the north centre
*
Karnic (18), in the west
*
Yardli (Yarli) (3), in the west
*''
Muruwari'' (1)
*''
Baagandji'' (Darling; inland of Lower Murray) (2)
Separated to the north of the rest of Pama–Nyungan is
*
Yolŋu
The Yolngu or Yolŋu ( or ) 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, Yalnumat ...
(10)
Some of inclusions in each branch are only provisional, as many languages became extinct before they could be adequately documented. Not included are dozens of poorly attested and extinct languages such as ''
Barranbinja'' and the ''
Lower Burdekin languages''.
A few more inclusive groups that have been proposed, such as ''
Northeast Pama–Nyungan'' (Pama–Maric), ''
Central New South Wales'', and ''
Southwest Pama–Nyungan'', appear to be geographical rather than genealogical groups.
Bowern & Atkinson
use
computational phylogenetics
Computational phylogenetics, phylogeny inference, or phylogenetic inference focuses on computational and optimization algorithms, Heuristic (computer science), heuristics, and approaches involved in Phylogenetics, phylogenetic analyses. The goal i ...
to calculate the following classification:
* Pama–Nyungan
** Southeastern
*** Victorian
****
Lower Murray languages
The Lower Murray languages form a branch of the Pama–Nyungan family. They are:Bowern, Claire. 2011.How Many Languages Were Spoken in Australia?, ''Anggarrgoon: Australian languages on the web'', December 23, 2011correctedFebruary 6, 2012)
* ...
**** Victorian
***** Eastern Victoria
******
Yorta-Yorta
******
Gunai
******
Pallanganmiddang
***** Macro-Kulin
******
Kulin languages
The Kulin languages are a group of closely related languages of the Kulin people, part of the ''Kulinic'' branch of Pama–Nyungan.
Languages
* Woiwurrung (Woy-wur-rung): spoken from Mount Baw Baw in the east to Mount Macedon, Sunbury and ...
******
Bungandidj
*** New South Wales
****
Yuin-Kuric languages
****
Central New South Wales languages
*** North Coast
****
Durubalic languages
****
Yugambeh-Bundjalung languages
****
Gumbaynggiric languages
****
Waka-Kabic languages
** Northern
*** Gulf
****
Kalkatungic languages
Kalkatungic is a branch of the Pama–Nyungan family,
* Kalkatungu,
* Yalarnnga.
The two languages are not close; Dixon treats them as separate families. A Wakabunga language
Wakabunga is an language death, extinct and unattested Austral ...
****
Mayabic languages
***
Pama-Maric (weak support)
****
Paman languages
The Paman languages are an Australian language family spoken on Cape York Peninsula, Queensland. First noted by Kenneth Hale, Paman is noteworthy for the profound phonological changes which have affected some of its descendants.
Classificat ...
****
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. On some islands, ...
****
Maric languages
Maran or Maric is an extinct branch of the Pama–Nyungan languages, Pama–Nyungan family of Australian languages formerly spoken throughout much of Queensland by many of the Murri peoples. The well attested Maric languages are clearly related ...
***** (?)
Dyirbalic languages
** Central
*** Arandic–Thura-Yura
****
Arandic languages
****
Thura-Yura languages
The Yura or Thura-Yura languages are a group of Australian Aboriginal languages surrounding Spencer Gulf and Gulf St Vincent in South Australia, that comprise a genetic language family of the Pama–Nyungan family.
Name
The name ''Yura'' com ...
*** Southwest Queensland
****
Karnic languages
The Karnic languages are a group of languages of the Pama–Nyungan family. According to Dixon (2002), these are three separate families, but Bowern (2001) establishes regular paradigmatic connections among many of the languages, demonstrating ...
**** Northwest NSW
*****
Yarli
*****
Paakantyi
** Western
*** Yolŋu-Ngarna (weak support)
****
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 Australians, indigenous people of northeast Arnhem Land in northern ...
****
Ngarna languages
The Ngarna or Warluwar(r)ic languages are a discontinuous primary branch of the Pama–Nyungan language family of Australia.Bowern, Claire. 2011.How Many Languages Were Spoken in Australia?, ''Anggarrgoon: Australian languages on the web'', Dece ...
*** Nyungic languages
**** Desert Nyungic
*****
Marrngu languages
The Marrngu languages are a branch of the Pama–Nyungan language family of Australia.
There are four members of the family, which all originated in Western Australia.
*Marrngu
** Mangala (Mangarla)
**Marrngu proper
***Karajarri (Garadjari)
** ...
*****
Ngumpin–Yapa languages
******
Warumungu languages
*****
Wati languages
The Wati languages are the dominant Pama–Nyungan languages of central Australia. They include the moribund Wanman language and the Western Desert dialect continuum
A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics) ...
**** Southwest Nyungic
***** Pilbara languages
******
Ngayarda languages
******
Kanyara-Mantharta languages
*****
Kartu–Nhanda languages
*****
Mirning languages
*****
Nyunga languages
*****
Yinggarda language
External relations
According to
Nicholas Evans
Nicholas Benbow Evans (26 July 1950 – 9 August 2022) was a British journalist, screenwriter, television and film producer and novelist. He was best known for his 1995 debut novel, ''The Horse Whisperer (novel), The Horse Whisperer''. It has s ...
, the closest relative of Pama–Nyungan is the
Garawan language family, followed by the small
Tangkic family. He then proposes a more distant relationship with the
Gunwinyguan languages in a macro-family he calls
Macro-Pama–Nyungan. However, this has yet to be demonstrated to the satisfaction of the linguistic community.
Validity
Dixon's scepticism
In his 1980 attempt to reconstruct Proto-Australian,
R. M. W. Dixon reported that he was unable to find anything that reliably set Pama–Nyungan apart as a valid genetic group. Fifteen years later, he had abandoned the idea that Australian or Pama–Nyungan were families. He now sees Australian as a
Sprachbund
A sprachbund (, from , 'language federation'), also known as a linguistic area, area of linguistic convergence, or diffusion area, is a group of languages that share areal features resulting from geographical proximity and language contact. Th ...
. Some of the small traditionally Pama–Nyungan families which have been demonstrated through the
comparative method
In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor and then extrapolating backwards ...
, or which in Dixon's opinion are likely to be demonstrable, include the following:
*North Cape York (Northern Paman, Umpila, Wik/Middle Paman: part of
Paman)
*
Yidinic (Dyaabugai and Yidiny: rejected by Bowern)
*
Maric (extinct languages uncertain)
*
Wiradhuric
*
Yolngu
The Yolngu or Yolŋu ( or ) 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, Yalnuma ...
*
Ngarna, a clear connection between
Yanyuwa and
Warluwara,
Wagaya,
Yindjilandji,
Bularnu.
*Part of
Yura
He believes that Lower Murray (five families and isolates), Arandic (2 families, Kaytetye and Arrernte), and Kalkatungic (2 isolates) are small ''Sprachbunds''.
Dixon's theories of Australian language
diachrony have been based on a model of
punctuated equilibrium
In evolutionary biology, punctuated equilibrium (also called punctuated equilibria) is a Scientific theory, theory that proposes that once a species appears in the fossil record, the population will become stable, showing little evolution, evol ...
(adapted from the eponymous model in
evolutionary biology
Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes such as natural selection, common descent, and speciation that produced the diversity of life on Earth. In the 1930s, the discipline of evolutionary biolo ...
) wherein he believes Australian languages to be ancient and to have—for the most part—remained in unchanging equilibrium with the exception of sporadic branching or
speciation events in the
phylogenetic tree
A phylogenetic tree or phylogeny is a graphical representation which shows the evolutionary history between a set of species or taxa during a specific time.Felsenstein J. (2004). ''Inferring Phylogenies'' Sinauer Associates: Sunderland, MA. In ...
. Part of Dixon's objections to the Pama–Nyungan family classification is the lack of obvious binary branching points which are implicitly or explicitly entailed by his model.
Mainstream rejoinders
However, the papers in demonstrate about ten traditional groups, including Pama–Nyungan, and its sub-branches such as Arandic, using the
comparative method
In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor and then extrapolating backwards ...
.
In his last published paper from the same collection,
Ken Hale describes Dixon's scepticism as an erroneous phylogenetic assessment which is "so bizarrely faulted, and such an insult to the eminently successful practitioners of Comparative Method Linguistics in Australia, that it positively demands a decisive riposte." In the same work Hale provides unique 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
The Cape York Peninsula is a peninsula located in Far North Queensland, Australia. It is the largest wilderness in northern Australia.Mittermeier, R.E. et al. (2002). Wilderness: Earth's last wild places. Mexico City: Agrupación Sierra Madre, ...
on the Australian northeast coast and Proto-Ngayarta of the Australian west coast, some 3,000 km apart (as well as from many other languages), 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. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists; its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-Euro ...
.
Bowern (2006)
Bowern offered an alternative to Dixon's binary phylogenetic-tree model based in the principles of
dialect geography. Rather than discarding the notion that multiple subgroups of languages are genetically related due to the presence of multiple dialectal epicentres arranged around stark
isogloss
An isogloss, also called a heterogloss, is the geographic boundary of a certain linguistics, linguistic feature, such as the pronunciation of a vowel, the meaning of a word, or the use of some morphological or syntactic feature. Isoglosses are a ...
es, Bowern proposed that the non-binary-branching characteristics of Pama–Nyungan languages are precisely what we would expect to see from a language continuum in which dialects are diverging linguistically but remaining in close geographic and social contact. Bowern offered three main advantages of this geographical-continuum model over the punctuated equilibrium model:
Bowern & Atkinson (2012)
Additional methods of computational phylogenetics employed by Bowern and Atkinson uncovered that there were more binary-branching characteristics than initially thought. Instead of acceding to the notion that Pama–Nyungan languages do not share the characteristics of a binary-branching language family, the computational methods revealed that inter-language loan rates were not as atypically high as previously imagined and do not obscure the features that would allow for a phylogenetic approach. This finding functioned as a kind of rejoinder to Dixon's scepticism.
Bowern and Atkinson's computational model is currently the definitive model of Pama–Nyungan intra-relatedness and diachrony.
See also
*
Macro-Pama–Nyungan languages
Macro-Pama-Nyungan is an umbrella term used to refer to a proposed Australian Aboriginal languages, Indigenous Australian language family. It was coined by the Australian linguist Nicholas Evans (linguist), Nicholas Evans in his 1996 book ''Arch ...
Citations
References
*
*
*
*
*
*
Dataset
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
;Data sets
*
GitHub repository
External links
Chirila – Yale Pama-Nyungan LabAIATSIS map of Australian languages
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pama-Nyungan languages
Language families
Indigenous Australian languages in New South Wales
Indigenous Australian languages in Victoria (state)
Indigenous Australian languages in Queensland
Indigenous Australian languages in South Australia