Re: Inventory of Australian languages as per Ethnologue

----- Original Message -----

From: John

To: Nostratica@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2003 7:37 AM

Subject: [Nostratica] Re: Inventory of Australian languages as per Ethnologue

Andrew Howey wrote:
>
> 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.

This is true.  But when you plot the distribution of these families
something strange emerges.

1. All the language families are present in the North of Australia
(corresponding an area between the Western Australian Kimberley
across the top of the Northern Territory, to Carpentaria and Cape
York.

2. Only one language family - the Pama Nyungan - is found across the
remaining 80% of Australia.

Despite the differences between families, there is a clear connection
by means of phonemes.

In Aboriginal Languages
There are no *s, *h, *f or *v

The phonemes *t and *d are identical
The phonemes *g and *k are identical
The phonemes *p and *b are identical

This is true of all language families.

Regards

John



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