Actually Andy I encountered a native Mexican in Hermosillo on the edge of the Sonoran Desert.  He only spoke Spanish and I spoke no Spanish at all.  Yet we were able to join his group for dinner and he taught me how to play dominoes.  Mule-ay was the term he used (and add his fingers above his ears to indicate horns) whenever he was able to make a match.  Travellers have similar stories from most of their destinations.
 
Gerry
----- Original Message -----
From: Andrew Howey
To: Nostratica@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, March 17, 2003 4:20 PM
Subject: Re: [Nostratica] Inventory of Australian languages as per Ethnologue

To put it a different way, it would be like you going to the Stanford Mall, encountering someone of Mexican descent who doesn't know English, and for the sake of argument, you don't know Spanish, and being able to converse with that person.  English and Spanish are both Indo-European languages, but are they mutually intelligible?  No.  It's probably the same situation between the speaker of Alyawarr and the speaker of Wanggamala.

Andy Howey

 Gerry Reinhart-Waller <waluk@...> wrote:

There we go.  Do you think this hold true for the entire listing of language families, Andy?  Is there anything on the web to verify this?
 
Gerry
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, March 17, 2003 3:27 PM
Subject: Re: [Nostratica] Inventory of Australian languages as per Ethnologue

To the best of my knowledge, the languages under the Burarra family are mutually unintelligible with the languages of the Bunaba family.  It is not a case of a dialect continuum.

 Gerry Reinhart-Waller <waluk@...> wrote:

Gotcha.  Thanks Andy for clarifying what could have become a muddle.
 
Now I shall rephrase my question:  can a speaker of Burarra understand a speaker of Bunaba?  IOW, the issue I'm trying to address is whether the listings you have presented are actually different dialects/languages whereby the speakers can fully understand each other. 
 
Gerry
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, March 17, 2003 12:34 PM
Subject: Re: [Nostratica] Inventory of Australian languages as per Ethnologue

Hi, Gerry:

The examples you gave are different families.  It would be equivalent asking whether a speaker of Germanic can understand a speaker of Turkic, for example, and the answer would be "No".  Nobody speaks Germanic, they speak English or German or Norwegian.  Likewise, nobody speaks Burrarran (Family), but they might speak BURARRA (language).

There might be a deep linguistic relation between families as postulated for Indo-European and Altaic, but, as I pointed out, that's in doubt for the various Australian families, but the individual languages are very different from each other. 

In sending the whole list, I think maybe I provided too much information.  Maybe I should just list the actual families.  Regarding "mega-families", until a relationship can be proven for the various Australian language families, I think the idea of an Australian macro-family is  a moot point.

Below is a list of JUST the language families:

Bunaban
Burarran
Daly
Djamindjungan
Djeragan
Enindhilygwa
Gagudjuan
Garawan
Gungaraganyan
Gunwingguan
Laragiyan
Mangerrian
Maran
Nyulnyulan
Pama-Nyungan
Tiwian
Unclassified
West Barkly
Wororan
Yiwaidjan

These are not the names of individual languages but the name of language groups, each one is at an equivalent level with, say, Finnic or Italic or Semitic.

I hope this clears things up a little.

Andy Howey

 Geraldine Reinhardt <waluk@...> wrote:

Thanks Andy. 
 
There are so many languages included.  Can a Bunaban speaker understand Burarran?  Does a Muran understand Pam-Nyungan? 
 
Ethnologue is an excellent source:  www.ethnologue.com/  but I don't see mega families being included.  Are these mega families necessary?
 
As I've often stated:  languages are as extensive as are the valleys of the world.  IOW, whenever a group moves from their parent domicile to their own abode, a new "language" arises.
 
Gerry