Girish Mahajan (Editor)

Worrorran languages

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Geographic distribution
  
northern Australia

Glottolog
  
worr1236

Worrorran languages

Linguistic classification
  
One of the world's primary language families

Subdivisions
  
Wunambal Ungarinyin Worrorra

The Worrorran (Wororan) languages are a small family of Australian Aboriginal languages spoken in northern Australia.

The Worrorran languages fall into three dialect clusters:

  • (Northern) Wunambal
  • (Eastern) Ungarinyin (Ngarinyin)
  • (Western) Worrorra

    • Validity

    There has been debate over whether the Worrorran languages are demonstrably related to one another, or constitute a geographical language group.

    Dixon (2002) considers them to be language isolates with no demonstrable relationship other than that of a Sprachbund.

    However, more recent literature differs from Dixon:

  • Rumsey and McGregor (2009) demonstrate the cohesiveness of the family and its reconstructibility, and;
  • Bowern (2011) accepts the Worroorran languages as a family.

    • References

    Worrorran languages Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA