Daly languages

Daly
Geographic distribution:	Daly River region, northern Australia
Linguistic classification:	Perhaps 5 independent families of Australian languages.
Subdivisions:	(uncertain)
Daly (on NW coast)

The Daly languages are proposed to be the third largest family of Indigenous Australian languages (McConvell & Evans 1997). They are spoken within the vicinity of the Daly River in the Northern Territory.

In the lexicostatistic classification of O'Grady, Voegelin and Vogelin (1966), the Daly languages were put in four distinct families. Darrel Tryon (1968, 1974) combined these into a single family, with the exception of Murrinh-patha.

However, such methodologies do not account for loan words. Ian Green (unpublished but cited in Dixon 2002) found that the languages could not be shown to be related by the comparative method, and so should be considered independent families and language isolates. The features they do share also tend to be shared with neighboring languages outside the Daly group.

• Patjtjamalh (Wadjiginy; Kandjerramalh dialect)

• Western Daly (common grammatical forms)

• Maranunggu (Emmi; Menhthe dialect)
• Marrithiyel (Marri Ammu, Marritjevin, Marridan, Marramanindjdji dialects)
• Marri Ngarr (Magati-ge dialect)

• Malak-Malak

• Eastern Dalay (closely related)

• Matngele
• Kamu

• Southern Daly (dubious)

• Murrinh-patha (Murinbata)
• Ngan’gityemerri

Southern Daly is uncertain. Murrinh-patha and Ngan’gityemerri closely correspond in their verbal inflections, and have cognates in their words for 'thou' (nhinhi and nyinyi) and 'this' (kanhi and kinyi).^[1] However, they share almost nothing else, and it is not clear what could explain this discrepancy.

References

1. ^ Note that Ngan’gityemerri has no nh, and so would expect to have ny where its relatives have nh.

• 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: Cambridge University Press. 
• O'Grady, G. N.; Voegelin, C. F.; Voegelin, F. M. (1966). "Languages of the world: Indo-Pacific Fascicle 6". Anthropological Linguistics 8 (2). 
• Tryon, D. T. (1968). "The Daly River languages: a survey". Papers in Australian Linguistics 3: 21–36. 
• Tryon, D. T. (1974). Daly family languages, Australia. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. 

External links

• Ethnologue report for Daly