Southern Daly languages facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Southern Daly |
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| Geographic distribution: |
Daly River region, northern Australia |
| Linguistic classification: | Proposed language family |
| Subdivisions: | |
 The Daly languages (color), among the other non-Pama-Nyungan languages (grey)
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.png) Southern Daly languages. Murrinh-patha is on the coast, Ngan’gityemerri in the interior.
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The Southern Daly languages are a group of two languages spoken by Aboriginal people in northern Australia. They are found in the Daly River area. These languages are:
- Murrinh-patha (also called Murinbata)
- Ngan’gityemerri (also called Ngan’gi)
Scientists who study languages, called linguists, believe these two languages might be part of a larger "family." This means they think the languages grew from one older, shared language. It's like how you and your cousins come from the same grandparents!
How Languages Are Grouped
Grouping languages into families helps us understand how they are related. It also shows how people moved and communicated long ago. For the Southern Daly languages, figuring out their connection has been a bit tricky.
A Tricky Connection
At first, the Murrinh-patha language seemed very different from all other languages. It shared only a small amount of its words (about 11%) with any other language. This made some people think it was an "isolate," meaning it had no close relatives.
However, linguists looked closer at how verbs (action words) are formed in both Murrinh-patha and Ngan’gityemerri. They found something amazing! The way verbs change to show who is doing the action or when it happened is very similar in both languages. These patterns are complex and have many unusual parts, making it unlikely they just happened by chance.
This strong similarity in verb patterns suggests that both languages came from a common "parent" language. Even though most of their words are different, this shared grammar is a strong clue. It's like two siblings who look very different but have the same unique way of talking!
Words and Sounds
Even though the grammar is similar, the words in Murrinh-patha and Ngan’gityemerri are mostly different. There are only a few words that are clearly similar, like:
- 'thou' (meaning 'you' for one person): nhinhi (Murrinh-patha) and nyinyi (Ngan’gityemerri)
- 'this': kanhi (Murrinh-patha) and kinyi (Ngan’gityemerri)
Linguists are still trying to understand why these languages have so many different words but such similar grammar. It's a puzzle they are working to solve!
See also
