The Daly languages are an
areal group of four to five
language families
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term ''family'' is a metaphor borrowed from biology, with the tree model used in historical linguistics ana ...
of
Indigenous Australian 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 ...
. They are spoken within the vicinity of the
Daly River in the
Northern Territory
The Northern Territory (abbreviated as NT; known formally as the Northern Territory of Australia and informally as the Territory) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian internal territory in the central and central-northern regi ...
.
Classification
In the
lexicostatistic
Lexicostatistics is a method of comparative linguistics that involves comparing the percentage of lexical cognates between languages to determine their relationship. Lexicostatistics is related to the comparative method but does not reconstruct a ...
classification of O'Grady, Voegelin and Voegelin, the Daly languages were put in four distinct families.
Darrell Tryon
Darrell T. Tryon (20 July 1942 – 15 May 2013) was a New Zealand-born linguist, academic, and specialist in Austronesian languages. Specifically, Tryon specialised in the study of the languages of the Pacific Islands, particularly Vanuatu, the ...
combined these into a single family, with the exception of
Murrinh-patha.
However, such methodologies are less effective with languages with a long history of word borrowing.
Linguist Ian Green found that the languages could not be shown to be related by 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 ...
, and so should be considered five independent families and
language isolate
A language isolate is a language that has no demonstrable genetic relationship with any other languages. Basque in Europe, Ainu and Burushaski in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, Haida and Zuni in North America, Kanoê in South America, and Tiwi ...
s.
[Green, I. "The Genetic Status of Murrinh-patha" in Evans, N., ed. "The Non-Pama-Nyungan Languages of Northern Australia: comparative studies of the continent’s most linguistically complex region". ''Studies in Language Change'', 552. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, 2003.] The features they do share also tend to be shared with neighboring languages outside the Daly group.
The established families (according to Nordlinger) are:
*Daly
**
Wagaydyic (Anson Bay)
***
Batjamalh (Wadjiginy)
***
Pungu Pungu (Kandjerramalh)
**
Malak-Malak (Nguluk Wanggar)
**
Western Daly
***
Marri Ngarr
***
Merranunggu
***
Marrithiyel
***
Marramaninjsji
**
Eastern Daly
***
Matngele (Werret/Dakayu)
***
Kamu
**
Southern Daly
***
Murrinh-patha
***
Ngan’gityemerri
Malak-Malak and Wagaydyic were once considered grouped into a Northern Daly family. Contemporary classifications may use Northern Daly to refer to Malak-Malak to the exclusion of the Wagaydyic languages (as Nordlinger does).
Vocabulary
Capell
Capell or Capel is a surname. Notable people with the name include:
Capell
* Arthur Capell, 1st Baron Capell of Hadham (1608–1649), English politician
* Arthur Capell, 1st Earl of Essex (1631–1683), English statesman
* Arthur Capell (1902–1 ...
(1940) lists the following basic vocabulary items for three Daly languages:
[Capell, Arthur. 1940]
The Classification of Languages in North and North-West Australia
''Oceania'' 10(3): 241-272, 404-433.
:
References
External links
* The Daly Languages website
dalylanguages.org brings together analysis, field note sketches and recordings of these languages.
{{language families
Proposed language families
Non-Pama-Nyungan languages