Australia’s indigenous languages have one source, study says

Researchers in Australia say they have traced the country’s indigenous languages back to a single, common tongue.

The languages are all derived from a mother tongue, known as Proto-Australian, that was spoken about 10,000 years ago, according to a new study.

Linguists have long debated the subject in Australia.

More than 200 languages were spoken at the time of British settlement in 1788.

The research, published in the Diachronica linguistics journal, is the first to prove that all of those languages came from the same family, said linguists at the University of Newcastle, Australia and Western Sydney University. 

“Until now, it was speculated that Australia was significantly more linguistically diverse than somewhere like Europe, because it had not been proven that all Australian languages actually stemmed from the same lineage,” said Associate Prof Mark Harvey from the University of Newcastle, Australia. Read more.