Pama-Nyungan

American  

[pah-muh-nyoong-guhn] / ˈpɑ məˈnyʊŋ gən /

noun

1. a family of Australian Aboriginal languages, the most widespread within the Australian group of languages.

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Pama-Nyungan British  

/ ˈpɑːməˈnjʊŋɡən /

adjective

1. of or relating to the largest superfamily of languages within the phylum of languages spoken by the native Australians

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noun

1. this phylum

Example Sentences

Of that enormous group of languages, most belonged to the Pama-Nyungan family, with dozens of branches that descended from a protolanguage probably spoken 6,000 years ago in the northeastern part of the continent.

From Scientific American • Oct. 18, 2023

Not everyone agrees that Pama-Nyungan is one family, however, for, like other Australian language families, it presents a puzzling pattern of similarities and differences.

From Science Magazine • Sep. 21, 2016

If Hale was right, then Pama-Nyungan, with more than 200 identified languages, would be one of the world's largest language families—larger than Indo-European and almost as large as Sino-Tibetan.

From Science Magazine • Sep. 21, 2016

Some suggested that the Pama-Nyungan family, if it exists, entered the continent in a separate migration, whereas others argued that it split off from other Aboriginal languages only a few thousand years ago.

From Science Magazine • Sep. 21, 2016

That suggests that Pama-Nyungan languages developed much as other world languages did, rather than being a rarefied case, she argues.

From Science Magazine • Sep. 21, 2016