Nyulnyulan languages

Endangered language family of Australia

The Nyulnyulan languages are a small family of closely related Australian Aboriginal languages spoken in northern Western Australia. Most languages in this family are extinct, with only three extant languages, all of which are almost extinct.

Internal classification

The languages form two branches established on the basis of lexical and morphological innovation.^[1]

• Nyulnyulan
  • Western or Nyulnyulic:
    • Nyulnyul †
    • Bardi
    • Jawi †
    • Djabirr-Djabirr †
    • Nimanburru †
  • Eastern or Dyukun:
    • Yawuru
    • Dyugun †
    • Warrwa †
    • Nyigina
    • Ngumbarl †

Vocabulary

Capell (1940) lists the following basic vocabulary items for the Nyulnyulan languages:^[2]

Lexical isoglosses

Some lexical isoglosses between Proto-Western Nyulnyulan and Proto-Eastern Nyulnyulan:^[3]

Proto-languages

Proto-Nyulnyulan

The following reconstruction of Proto-Nyulnyulan is from Stokes and McGregor (2003):^[3]

Abbreviations

• WNN: Western Nyulnyulan
• ENN: Eastern Nyulnyulan

Proto-Western Nyulnyulan

The following reconstruction of Proto-Western Nyulnyulan is from Stokes and McGregor (2003):^[3]

Proto-Eastern Nyulnyulan

The following reconstruction of Proto-Eastern Nyulnyulan is from Stokes and McGregor (2003):^[3]

References

1. Bowern, Clair. 2004. Bardi Verb Morphology in Historical Perspective. PhD, Harvard University.
2. Capell, Arthur. 1940. The Classification of Languages in North and North-West Australia. Oceania 10(3): 241-272, 404-433. doi:10.1002/j.1834-4461.1940.tb00292.x
3. Stokes, Bronwyn and William McGregor. 2003. Classification and Subclassification of the Nyulnyulan Languages. In Nicholas Evans (ed.), The non-Pama-Nyungan languages of northern Australia: comparative studies of the continent's most linguistically complex region, 29-74. Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University.

• Bowern, Claire. 2004. Bardi Verb Morphology in Historical Perspective PhD, Harvard University
• Bowern, Claire. 2010. Two Missing Pieces in a Nyulnyulan Jigsaw Puzzle. LSA, Baltimore.
• Stokes, B; McGregor, W. B. (2003). "Classification and subclassification of the Nyulnyulan languages". In N. Evans (ed.). The Non-Pama–Nyungan Languages of Northern Australia: Comparative Studies of the Continent's Most Linguistically Complex Region. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. pp. 29–74.