| Southwest Pama–Nyungan | |
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution | Southwestern Australia |
| Linguistic classification | Pama–Nyungan
|
| Subdivisions | |
| Language codes | |
| Glottolog | sout3134 |
 | |
The Southwest Pama–Nyungan or Nyungic language group is the most diverse and widespread, though hypothetical, subfamily of the Pama–Nyungan language family of Australia. It contains about fifty distinct languages.
Internal classification
The Kanyara and Mantharta languages appear to be the most divergent of the Southwest languages. The others are sometimes collected under the name Nyungic.
Validity
The proposal has been largely abandoned. Bowern (2011) restricts "Southwest Pama–Nyungan" to Nyungar plus Kalaaku (See Nyungic languages). However, the language group does correspond to a clade identified in Bouckaert et al. (2018).
Footnotes
References
- Bouckaert, R. R., Bowern, C., & Atkinson, Q. D. (2018). The origin and expansion of Pama–Nyungan languages across Australia. Nature ecology & evolution, 2(4), 741-749.
- Dixon, R. M. W. (2002). Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.