| Macro-Pama–Nyungan | |
|---|---|
| (controversial) | |
| Geographic distribution | northern Australia |
| Linguistic classification | Proposedlanguage family |
| Subdivisions | |
| Language codes | |
| Glottolog | None |
 Pama–Nyungan (yellow), Garawan and Tangkic (green), and Macro-Gunwinyguan (orange) | |
Macro-Pama-Nyungan is an umbrella term used to refer to a proposedIndigenous Australian language family. It was coined by the Australian linguistNicholas Evans in his 1996 bookArchaeology and linguistics: Aboriginal Australia in global perspective, co-authored by Patrick McConvell.[1] The term arose fromEvans' theory suggesting that two of the largest Indigenous Australian language families share a common origin, and should therefore be classified as a singularlanguage family under "Macro-Pama-Nyungan".[2]
The two main families that Evans refers to are theMacro-Gunwinyguan family fromNorthern Australia,[3] and the most widespreadPama–Nyungan family that spans across mainland andSouthern Australia.[4] The different theories regarding Australian linguistic prehistory and Australian language family evolution are widely debated, therefore Macro-Pama-Nyungan is an inconclusive language family classification that is often dissented by linguists in the Aboriginal Australian language community.[5]
The legitimacy of the Macro-Pama-Nyungan classification and supporting theories remain open to question since language reconstruction of Indigenous Australian language families is in its early stages.[5]
The term "Macro-Pama-Nyungan", or otherwise interchangeably referred to as 'Gunwinyguan-Tangkic-Karrwan (Garrwan)-Pama-Nyungan',[1] was first coined in the 1997 bookArchaeology and linguistics: Aboriginal Australia in global perspective, by the Australian linguistNicholas Evans, co-authored by Patrick McConvell.[2] It refers to a proposed classification of a large Indigenous Australian language family sharing a common linguistic origin that geographically spreads across the continent fromArnhem Land inNorthern Australia toSouthwestern Australia.[2]
Evans explores this claim of a higher-level "Macro-Pama-Nyungan" Indigenous Australian language family classification[6] in several of his works. His most notable books areThe Cradle of the Pama-Nyungans: Archaeological and Linguistic Speculations, published in 1997 co-authored by Rhys Jones,[7] andThe non-Pama-Nyungan languages of northern Australia: comparative studies of the continent's most linguistically complex region published in 2003 and edited byEvans.[6] In his works,Evans uses the Macro-Pama-Nyungan term to propose that the majority of Indigenous languages acrossAustralia have a common origin and share an inheritance with a common linguistic ancestor.[6]
According toEvans, the Macro-Pama-Nyungan language family is made up of theGunwinyguan languages from Arnhem Land inNorthern Australia, theTangkic languages fromMornington Island in theWellesley Islands ofQueensland, theGarrwan (or Karrwan) languages fromQueensland and theNorthern Territory, and the largerPama–Nyungan language family[6] that geographically covers approximately 90% of the Australian continent.[8] The grouping of theGunwinyguan,Tangkic andGarrwan language families fromnorthern Australia forms the "macro" extension ofPama–Nyungan language family to form the Macro-Pama-Nyungan term.[6] The largerPama–Nyungan family includes around 300Aboriginal languages, mainly located across southern parts ofAustralia.[4]
Prior to this, the American linguistKenneth L. Hale establishes thePama–Nyunganlanguage family classification in the year 1964 in his workClassification of Northern Paman Languages.[9] He concludes that thePama–Nyunganlanguage family is "one relatively closely interrelated family [that] had spread and proliferated over most of the continent, while approximately a dozen other families were concentrated along the North coast".[9] In the book edited byEvans,The non-Pama-Nyungan languages of northern Australia: comparative studies of the continent's most linguistically complex region,Evans refers toHale'sPama–Nyungan classification, and claims that out of the dozen other families concentrated alongNorthern Australia,Gunwinyguan,Tangkic andGarrwan are threenon-Pama-Nyunganlanguage families that do in fact have a close relation to thePama–Nyunganlanguage family, and should therefore be classified under one large Macro-Pama Nyunganlanguage family.[6]
Evans uses thePama–Nyungan offshoot model from the article written byGeoffrey O'Grady,Preliminaries to a proto Nuclear Pama-Nyungan stem list[10] to propose thatPama–Nyungan is an offshootlanguage family sharing immediate ancestry with these threenon-Pama-Nyungan subgroups.[6]Evans identifies theGarrwan language as a close sister of thePama–Nyungan languages, due to themorphological andphonological elements found in theGarrwan language that linkPama–Nyungan languages to the stages when theProto-Pama–Nyungan languages split from its predecessors.[6]Evans also refers toO'Grady's grouping of theGunwinyguan andTangkic languages with thePama–Nyungan language group as 'nuclearPama–Nyungan',[10] in order to make the higher-level Macro-Pama-Nyunganlanguage family classification.[6]
Considering that the vast majority ofAustralian Aboriginal languages have become extinct with no living speakers and that many of the remainingAustralian Aboriginal languages are also endangered to some degree,[11] many linguists acknowledge that language family classification is an inconclusive debate that needs further exploration and research since Indigenous Australian language family reconstruction is in its early stages,[5] and the legitimacy of chosen reconstruction methods is widely debated.[12]
With limited reconstruction work having been done onPama–Nyungan andnon-Pama-Nyunganlanguage families and their subgroups,[12] further study of the linguisticstratigraphy ofloanwords is needed to provide a foundation for hypotheses to be made about the sociocultural and environmental prehistory of IndigenousAustralia.[12]
There is considerable debate over which of the linguistic elements found across language groups are attributed to a shared inheritance from a common ancestor, and which elements are attributed to more recent contact between linguistic groups.[12] These two points form two theories surrounding the extent to whichPama–Nyungan languages are proposed to have spread acrossAustralia,[8] leading to the ongoing classification and declassification debate over the possibility of a legitimate Macro-Pama-Nyunganlanguage family.[14]
The first theory suggests that the size and spread of thePama–Nyungan language family is attributed todemic diffusion resulting from climatic changes, causing people to seek refuge in inhabitable areas.[8] The timing ofPama–Nyungan language family expansion as the largesthunter-gathererlanguage family in the world has possible origins in theGulf Plains region,[8] with four possible timings fordemic diffusion put forth. The first is upon initial colonisation ofAustralia, the second aslate Pleistocene, the third as earlyHolocene, and the fourth as after theLast Glacial Maximum.[8]
The second theory suggests that social and technological advantages and the intensification and spread ofagricultural techniques facilitated the large-scale replacement ofnon-Pama-Nyungan languages during the mid-Holocene, originating from theGulf Plains region.[8] Linguists Bouckaert,Bowern, and Atkinson state that "Pama-Nyungan languages were carried as a part of an expanding package of cultural innovations that probably facilitated the absorption and assimilation of existing hunter-gatherer groups",[8] acknowledging possible associations with the introduction of thedingo, newlithic technologies and social institutions.[8]
According to theDiversification of the Pama–Nyungan language family tree presented in figure 2 ofThe origin and expansion of Pama–Nyungan languages across Australia by Bouckaert,Bowern and Atkinson, the earliest three subgroups to break off from thePama–Nyunganlanguage family were the Western branch, the Southern group and the Tangkic branch.[8] These groups collectively expand acrossSouth Australia,Western Australia, theNorthern Territory,Victoria, the majority ofNew South Wales and the SoutheastQueensland coast.[8] Bouckaert,Bowern and Atkinson acknowledge the existence of patterns consistent with language group settlement alongwatercourses that could indicaterivers andcoastline areas as possible launching points for group and languagefission, however this is not supported by the migration model put forth in the same journal article.[8]
Due to the extinction of manyIndigenous Australian languages, there is limited access to linguistic evidence. Linguists have therefore used geographic, genetic, archaeological and linguistic methods to form language family reconstructions and associations.[15] The legitimacy of these methods is questioned amongst linguists and has formed a widespread debate on the classification and declassification of certainIndigenous Australianlanguage families and their subgroups.[12]
Whether the threenon-Pama-Nyunganlanguage familiesGunwinyguan,Tangkic andGarrwan can be classified as Macro-Pama-Nyungan as proposed byEvans is inconclusive due to the legitimacy of relational strength to thePama–Nyunganlanguage family.[5]Evans' classification of theGunwinyguan family is unclear due to the use of unestablished, non-traditionallinguistic reconstruction methods.[5] Linguist Rebecca Green argues that the shared irregularities in verbmorphology indicate thatGunwinyguan is in fact part of the Macro-Pama-Nyungan family,[16] and linguist Harvey refers toEvans' position on grammatical grounds that "these languages have been in and out of Pama-Nyungan throughout the history of classification" as justification to support the Macro-Pama-Nyungan classification.[14]
Evans proposes that theGunwinyguan family could be a sister to the Macro-Pama-Nyungan family that containsTangkic,Garrwan and corePama–Nyungan. Of these three subgroups,Tangkic is considered one of the earliest formed branches of the Greater-Pama-Nyunganlanguage family,[8] andBowern acknowledges that some linguists suggestTangkic has close relations to thePama–NyunganYolŋu languages.[8] McConvell andBowern mention the linguistic geography hypothesis put forward byHale stating that thePama–Nyungan family originates from the base of theGulf of Carpentaria, and note that according toEvans, this placesPama–Nyungan families in close proximity to theGarrwan andTangkic families.[12]
The Macro-Pama-Nyungan claim is an inconclusivelanguage family classification, yet Aboriginal Australian linguists acknowledge the possible legitimacy of the claim.[5] Due to the lack of evidence and questionable methods used to makelinguistic reconstructions and associations betweenlanguage families and their subgroups,[12] the Macro-Pama-Nyungan claim is widely dissented among linguists in the Aboriginal Australian language community.[citation needed]
InHistorical linguistics in Australia: trees, networks and their implications,Bowern states that the Macro-Pama-Nyungan language tree model used byEvans is "based on very little evidence" due to the fact that "a single shared innovation defines each of these nodes".[5] Bouckaert,Bowern and Atkinson state that there are severalnon-Pama-Nyungan groups that separate and disprove the proposed relationship between thenon-Pama-NyunganGarrwan family and thePama–NyunganYolŋu family that has been put forth in the Aboriginal Australian language community.[8]
Bowern argues that theGunwinyguan family contains a number ofArnhem Land languages that are not considered to be closely related to thePama–Nyunganlanguage family, disputingGunwinyguan,Tangkic andGarrwan as classifiable under Macro-Pama-Nyungan.[5] In regard toEvans' claims thatGunwinyguan could possibly be a sister to the Macro-Pama-Nyungan family, McConvell andBowern both note thatGunwinyguan cannot be classed as both a sister to the Macro-Pama-Nyungan family and as a part of theArnhem Land family subgroup simultaneously.[12]