Southwest Pama–Nyungan languages

The Southwest Pama–Nyungan or Nyungic language group is the most diverse and widespread, though hypothetical, subfamily of the Pama–Nyungan language family of Australia. It contains about fifty distinct languages.

Southwest Pama–Nyungan
Geographic
distribution
Southwestern Australia
Linguistic classificationPama–Nyungan
  • Southwest Pama–Nyungan
Subdivisions
Language codes
Glottologsout3134

Internal classification

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The Kanyara and Mantharta languages appear to be the most divergent of the Southwest languages. The others are sometimes collected under the name Nyungic.

Validity

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The proposal has been largely abandoned. Bowern (2011) restricts "Southwest Pama–Nyungan" to Nyungar plus Kalaaku (See Nyungic languages). However, the language group does correspond to a clade identified in Bouckaert et al. (2018).

Footnotes

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References

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  • Bouckaert, R. R., Bowern, C., & Atkinson, Q. D. (2018). The origin and expansion of Pama–Nyungan languages across Australia. Nature ecology & evolution, 2(4), 741-749.
  • Dixon, R. M. W. (2002). Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.