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

Classification In the lexicostatistic classification of O'Grady, Voegelin and Voegelin, the Daly languages were put in four distinct families. Darrell Tryon combined these into a single family, with the exception of Murrinh-patha. However, such methodologies are less effective with languages with a long history of word borrowing.

Linguist 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.Green, I. "The Genetic Status of Murrinh-patha" in Evans, N., ed. "The Non-Pama-Nyungan Languages of Northern Australia: comparative studies of the continent’s most linguistically complex region". Studies in Language Change, 552. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, 2003. The features they do share also tend to be shared with neighboring languages outside the Daly group.

The established families (according to Nordlinger) are:

Daly Wagaydyic (Anson Bay) Batjamalh (Wadjiginy) Pungu Pungu (Kandjerramalh) Malak-Malak (Nguluk Wanggar) Western Daly Marri Ngarr Merranunggu Marrithiyel Marramaninjsji Eastern Daly Matngele (Werret/Dakayu) Kamu Southern Daly Murrinh-patha Ngan’gityemerri

Malak-Malak and Wagaydyic were once considered grouped into a Northern Daly family. Contemporary classifications may use Northern Daly to refer to Malak-Malak to the exclusion of the Wagaydyic languages (as Nordlinger does).

Vocabulary Capell (1940) lists the following basic vocabulary items for three Daly languages:Capell, Arthur. 1940. The Classification of Languages in North and North-West Australia. Oceania 10(3): 241-272, 404-433.

{| class="wikitable sortable" ! gloss ! Mulluk Mulluk(Northern Daly) !! Marithiel(Western Daly) !! Nanggumiri(Southern Daly) |- ! man

! woman

! head

! eye

! nose

! mouth

! tongue

! stomach

! bone

! blood

! kangaroo

! possum

! emu

! crow

! fly

! sun

! moon

! fire

! smoke

! water

References

External links The Daly Languages website (dalylanguages.org) brings together analysis, field note sketches and recordings of these languages.