Daly languages

Daly
(geographic)
Geographic distribution:	Daly River region, northern Australia
Linguistic classification:	Geographic group of Australian language families.
Subdivisions:	Malak-Malak Wagaydyic Eastern Daly Western Daly Southern Daly
Glottolog:	None
The Daly languages (color), among the other non-Pama-Nyungan languages (grey)
Closeup. Anson Bay is the northernmost section, Murrinh-patha the westernmost.   North Daly      West Daly   East Daly   South Daly

The Daly languages are an areal group of four to five language families of Indigenous Australian languages (McConvell & Evans 1997). They are spoken within the vicinity of the Daly River in the Northern Territory.

Classification

In the lexicostatistic classification of O'Grady, Voegelin and Vogelin (1966), the Daly languages were put in four distinct families. Darrell 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 found that the languages could not be shown to be related by the comparative method, and so should be considered five independent families and language isolates. The features they do share also tend to be shared with neighboring languages outside the Daly group.

The established families are:

• Malak-Malak
• Wagaydyic
• Western Daly (Maranunggu, Marrithiyel, Marri Ngarr)
• Eastern Daly (Matngele and Kamu)
• Murrinh-patha
• Ngan’gityemerri

Murrinh-patha and Ngan’gityemerri are generally accepted as being related in a Southern Daly family. Malak-Malak and Wagaydyic have received less acceptance as Northern Daly.

References

• McConvell, Patrick and Nicholas Evans. (eds.) 1997. Archaeology and Linguistics: Global Perspectives on Ancient Australia. Melbourne: Oxford University Press