Australian Aboriginal languages
Indigenous languages of Australia
Australian Aboriginal languages
Australian Aboriginal languages are those languages spoken by Australian Aboriginal people. There are more than 250 distinct languages. Australian languages have historically been classified into numerous language families. The largest single language family is the Pama-Nyungan family, which covers approximately seven eighths of the continent; the remaining languages sometimes called "non-Pama-Nyungan" as a term of convenience, are clustered together in the north-west, and have been classified into over twenty separate families. Despite the diversity of Australian languages, many linguists have considered for decades that most languages of the Australian continent, including Pama-Nyungan, are members of one higher-level family. A proto-language, Proto-Australian, was reconstructed for the first time in 2024. Proto-Australian is dated to approximately 6,000 years before the present; how it spread across the continent, replacing earlier languages, is as yet unclear. There have always been...
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