Worrorran languages
Encyclopedia
The Worrorran languages are a small family
of Australian Aboriginal languages
spoken in northern Australia.
The Worrorran languages fall into three branches, which are not closely related:
s with no demonstrable relationship other than that of a Sprachbund
.
Language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term 'family' comes from the tree model of language origination in historical linguistics, which makes use of a metaphor comparing languages to people in a...
of Australian Aboriginal languages
Australian Aboriginal languages
The Australian Aboriginal languages comprise several language families and isolates native to the Australian Aborigines of Australia and a few nearby islands, but by convention excluding the languages of Tasmania and the Torres Strait Islanders...
spoken in northern Australia.
The Worrorran languages fall into three branches, which are not closely related:
- WunambalWunambal languageWunambal is a moribund Australian Aboriginal language of Western Australia.-Classification:Wunambal is usually grouped with Worrorra and Ungarinjin in the Wororan family. R. M. W. Dixon , however, regards Wororan as simply an areal group...
(a dialect cluster) - Ungarinyin (Ngarinyin)
- WorrorraWorrorra languageWorrorra is a moribund Australian Aboriginal language of northern Western Australia....
Validity
Dixon (2002) considers these to be three language isolateLanguage isolate
A language isolate, in the absolute sense, is a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical relationship with other languages; that is, one that has not been demonstrated to descend from an ancestor common with any other language. They are in effect language families consisting of a single...
s with no demonstrable relationship other than that of a Sprachbund
Sprachbund
A Sprachbund – also known as a linguistic area, convergence area, diffusion area or language crossroads – is a group of languages that have become similar in some way because of geographical proximity and language contact. They may be genetically unrelated, or only distantly related...
.