Pama–Nyungan languages

Pama–Nyungan
Geographic distribution:	most of mainland Australia, with the exception of northern parts of Northern Territory and Western Australia
Linguistic classification:	Macro-Pama–Nyungan Greater Pama–Nyungan Pama–Nyungan
Proto-language:	Proto-Pama–Nyungan
Subdivisions:	(numerous; see below)
Pama–Nyungan languages (yellow) Other Macro-Pama–Nyungan (green and orange)

The Pama–Nyungan languages are the most widespread family of Indigenous Australian languages,^[1] containing 160 of 228 identified languages. The name "Pama–Nyungan" is derived from the names of two widely separated groups, the Pama languages from the Northeast, and the Nyungan languages from the Southwest. The terms pama and nyunga are expressions meaning "man" in the languages from their respective regions.

The other language families indigenous to the continent of Australia are occasionally referred to, by exclusion, as Non-Pama–Nyungan languages, though this is not a proper taxonomic term. There are on the order of hundreds of Pama–Nyungan languages. 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, with thousands of speakers or fewer. Most are considered endangered languages, and many have recently become extinct.

The Pama–Nyungan family was identified and named 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. Noted Australianist R. M. W. Dixon, whose rejection of the standard "family-tree" model of linguistic change^[2] departs "rather radically" from accepted views^[3] has suggested that diagnostic innovations that define the family^[4] have spread across the continent by diffusion, but his arguments have so far failed to convince Australianists.^[5]

Typology

Evans and McConvell describe typical Pama–Nyungan languages such as Warlpiri as dependent-marking 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.^[6]

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 are believed to have been inhabiting Australia. 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 and ritual.^[7][8]

Vocabulary

In addition to Hale's 1982 list of words unique to Pama–Nyungan, and in addition to pronouns and case endings they reconstruct for the proto-language, Evans and McConvell report that while some of their roots are implausible, O'Grady and Tryon, nevertheless provide "hundreds of clear cognate sets with attestations throughout the Pama–Nyungan area and absent outside."^[6]

Phonology

Proto-Pama–Nyungan's phonological inventory, as reconstructed by Barry Alpher (2004), is quite similar to those of most present-day Australian languages.

Vowels

Vowel length is contrastive only in the first (i.e. stressed) syllable in a word.

Consonants

Proto-Pama–Nyungan seems to have had only one set of laminal consonants; the two contrasting sets (lamino-dental and lamino-alveopalatal or "palatal") found in some present-day languages can largely be explained as innovations resulting from conditioned sound changes.

Nevertheless, there are a small number of words where an alveopalatal stop is found^[where?] where a dental would be expected, and these are written *cʸ. There is no convincing evidence, however, of an equivalent nasal *ñʸ or lateral *λʸ.

Phonotactics

Pama-Nyungan languages generally share several broad phonotactic constraints: Single-consonant onsets, a lack of fricatives, and a prohibition against liquids (laterals and rhotics) beginning words. Voiced fricatives have developed in several scattered languages, such as Anguthimri, though often the sole alleged fricative is /ɣ/ and is analyzed as an approximant /ɰ/ by other linguists. The prime example is Kala Lagaw Ya, which acquired both fricatives and a voicing contrast in them and in its plosives from contact with Papuan languages. Several of the languages of Victoria allowed initial /l/, and one—Gunai—also allowed initial /r/ and consonant clusters /kr/ and /pr/, a trait shared with the Tasmanian languages across the Bass Strait.

Classification

According to Nicholas Evans at the Australian National University, the closest relative of Pama–Nyungan is the Garawa isolate, followed by the small Tankic family. He then proposes a more distant relationship with the Gunwinyguan languages in a macro-family he calls Macro-Pama–Nyungan.

A fairly aggressive internal classification of Pama–Nyungan proper includes approximately 175 languages in 14 extant and numerous extinct branches.^{[citation needed]}

• Arandic: Arrernte, Kaytetye [demonstrated 2004]
• Baagandji [a dialect cluster isolate per Dixon]
• Barrow Point
• Bundjalungic: Yugambeh, Bandjalang
• Dhudhuroa
• Durubalic: Turrubal (Yagara), Gowar, Jandai
• Dyangadi: Dyangadi, Nganyaywana [accepted by Dixon]
• Flinders Island
• Gaanay
• Gumbaynggiric: Gumbaynggir, Yaygir
• Kala Lagaw Ya (Mabuiag)
• Kalkatungic: Kalkatungu, Yalarnnga [2 families per Dixon]
• Karnic (reduced) [3 families per Dixon: Karna (e.g. Diyari), Ngura, and Palku (e.g. Pitta Pitta)]
• Kulinic [3 families per Dixon: Kulin (e.g. Woiwurrung), Kolakngat, and Drual.]
• Lower Burdekin (too poorly attested to know where they belong, or if they belong together)
• Lower Murray [5 families per Dixon: Yaralde, Ngayawung, Yuyu, Keramin, Yitha-Yitha.]
• Mayabic (Mayi): Mayi-Kutuna, Mayi-Kulan, Ngawun
• Muruwari
• Ngarna (Warluwaric) [accepted by Dixon]
• Northeast (Pama–Maric): See article for membership [some branches accepted by Dixon]
• Nyawaygic: Nyawaygi, Wulguru
• Pallangahmiddang
• Southwest (Nyungic): See article for membership [some branches accepted by Dixon]
• Waka–Kabic: Bayali, Gureng Gureng, Gabi, Wuliwuli, Waga, Barunggam, Muringam
• Warumungu
• Wiradhuric [accepted by Dixon]
• Worimi: Worimi, Awabakal [accepted by Dixon]
• Yarli (Yardli): Malyangapa, Wadikali, Yardliyawara [a dialect cluster isolate per Dixon]
• Yotayotic: Yotayota, Yabula-Yabula [2 families per Dixon]; ?Baraparapa
• Yuin–Yora: Gudungura, Ngarigu, Thawa, Dyirringany, Dhurga, Dharawal, Darkinyung, Dharuk
• Yuulngu or Yolŋu Matha: (a) Dhuwal, Ritharngu; (b) Yan-nhangu, Dhangu; (c) Djinang, Djinba [accepted by Dixon]

Not all of these branches are demonstrated; in particular, Northeast and Southwest Pama–Nyungan may not be valid:

• Northeast Pama–Nyungan: Djirbalic, Paman, Maric
• Southwest Pama–Nyungan: Kanyara, Mantharta, Ngayarta, Ngumpin–Yapa, Nyungar, Thura-Yura, Wati, Kartu

Validity

Dixon's skepticism

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 language area (Dixon 2002). Some of the small traditionally Pama–Nyungan families which have been demonstrated through the comparative method, or which in Dixon's opinion are likely to be demonstrable, include the following:

• North Cape York (Northern Paman, Umpila, Wik/Middle Paman) [in NE above]
• Yidinic (Dyaabugai and Yidiny)
• Maric (inclusion of extinct languages uncertain) [in NE above]
• Wiradhuric
• Yolngu
• Ngarrga and Ngumpin [in SW above] are each valid but demonstrating a relationship between them will require reconstructing their protolanguages.
• Ngarna, a clear connection between Yanyuwa and Warluwara, Wagaya, Yindjilandji, Bularnu.
• Part of Yura [in SW above]
• Karna, Ngura, and Palku, but not the Karnic family they are supposed to belong to.

He believes that Lower Murray (5 families and isolates), Arandic (2 families, Kaytetye and Arrernte), and Kalkatungic (2 isolates) are small Sprachbunds.

Mainstream rejoinders

However, the papers in Bowern & Koch (2004) demonstrate about ten traditional groups, including Pama–Nyungan, and its sub-branches such as Arandic, using the comparative method.

In his last published paper from the same collection, Ken Hale describes Dixon's skepticism as an "extravagantly and spectacularly erroneous" and "wrong-headed" 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."^[9] 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 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.

See also

• Pama–Nyungan languages page in MultiTree Project.
• Gunwinyguan languages
• Macro-Pama–Nyungan languages
• Southwest Pama–Nyungan languages
• Proto-Pama–Nyungan language

References

1. ^ International Encyclopedia of Linguistics, William J. Frawley, p 232,
2. ^ Dixon, R.M.W. 2002. Australian languages: their nature and development, Cambridge University Press.
3. ^ Wurm S.A. 1972 Languages of Australia and Tamania p.36
4. ^ For example, he argues that the first person dual form ngali, rather than demonstrating the genetic relatedness of the Pama-Nuyungan languages, has spread from coast to coast of Australia by borrowing between genetically unrelated dialects. Concise encyclopedia of languages of the world By Keith Brown, Sarah Ogilvie, p 85
5. ^ Concise encyclopedia of languages of the world By Keith Brown, Sarah Ogilvie, p 85
6. ^ ^{a b} Nick Evans and Patrick McConvell, "The Enigma of Pama–Nyungan Expansion in Australia" Archaeology and language, Volume 29, Roger Blench, Matthew Spriggs, eds., Routledge, 1999, p176
7. ^ Hale & O'Grady, pp. 91–92
8. ^ Evans & Rhys
9. ^ "the Coherence and Distinctiveness of the Pama–Nyungan Language Family within the Australian Linguistic Phylum" Geoff O'Grady and Ken Hale, p 69, Australian Languages: Classification and the Comparative Method, Claire Bowern and Harold Koch, eds., John Benjamins Pub. Co., Amsterdam and Philadelphia, 2004

Bibliography

• Claire Bowern & Harold Koch, eds. (2004) Australian Languages: Classification and the Comparative Method. John Benjamins Publishing Company.
• McConvell, Patrick and Nicholas Evans. (eds.) 1997. Archaeology and Linguistics: Global Perspectives on Ancient Australia. Melbourne: Oxford University Press
• Dixon, R. M. W. 2002. Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development. Cambridge University Press
• Evans, Nicholas. (eds.) 2003. The Non-Pama–Nyungan Languages of Northern Australia. Comparative studies of the continent's most linguistically complex region. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics

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