Reassessing Australia's Linguistic Prehistory

Abstract

The origin of the typological split between the Australian PamaNyungan and nonPamaNyungan languages is here described by reference to palaeogeography. In the model advanced here these currently contiguous groups are understood to have originated in widely separate regions of Sahul at a time depth about twice that of previous estimates. Australian linguistic diversity is explained in terms of climatic events at the end of the last ice agethose that brought about the evacuation of the central arid zone during it and the evacuation of the Arafuran floodplain after it. The argument advanced here crucially concerns the origin and nature of the PamaNyungan and nonPamaNyungan (Arafuran) language groups, and the implications of the model for this discussion are addressed. The PamaNyungan and nonPamaNyungan groups are now understood to represent very ancient Sprachbnde rather than the results of phylogenetic spreading from protolanguage ancestors.