Talk:List of Australian Aboriginal languages

Languages
OK am updating from the AIATSIS web site. Enlil Ninlil 05:29, 11 November 2006 (UTC) Have done Tassi and spencer. Enlil Ninlil 07:15, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Duplicate list; plus Focus on the endangered nature of the languages...
Hi,

Good job on the page!

I was unaware of the existence of this list, and have begun making a duplicate at:


 * (the location of this table may be moved around at any time, since it is currently on a huge page that I plan to break up into separate pages; see User:Ling.Nut/ELSA and User:Ling.Nut/ELA for examples).

I'd like to discuss the article title. The title is of course factually correct. But I would like to place much more emphasis on the endangered/extinct nature of the languages. You and I know that the overlap between "List of Australian Aboriginal languages" and "List of endangered languages in Australia" is huge, but I imagine that many people may be unaware. Would therefore like to move this list to a name that somehow includes "endangered" or preferably two lists for "endangered" and "extinct." I'm not gonna be BOLD and just do it, though. We are all working toward the same end; let's work together!

All comments welcome! --Ling.Nut 12:46, 12 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Wouldn't that be a little bit POV? Besides, it wouldn't be accurate, as they aren't all endangered. --Ptcamn 16:10, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Creating a list of endangered languages is POV? I'm not sure I understand...
 * Yes of course, languages that are not endangered do not belong on a list of endangered languages. :-)
 * I'm simply saying these things:
 * There are enough endangered languages to justify the existence of such as list. [There may be enough to extinct languages to justify the existence of a list of extinct languages.]
 * The issue is an important one; important enough to warrant explicit focus.
 * I don't see a problem with having two (or perhaps three) lists, so long as each list contains a link to the other one (or two). Clarity through categorization.
 * Thanks --Ling.Nut 16:25, 12 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes of course, languages that are not endangered do not belong on a list of endangered languages.
 * Then why are you proposing that we move this list to "List of endangered languages in Australia", when it covers non-endangered languages?
 * There are enough endangered languages to justify the existence of such as list.
 * On the contrary, I think there are too many to justify the existence of such as list. It would needlessly duplicate information that could be more efficiently given in this list.
 * The issue is an important one; important enough to warrant explicit focus.
 * This is the POV part: it sounds like a POV fork. We're here to report information, not be activists.
 * I don't see a problem with having two (or perhaps three) lists, so long as each list contains a link to the other one (or two).
 * I see a problem: whenever someone makes a change to one of the lists, the other two lists will have to be updated with the same change.
 * ...Having said that, I don't think I would be adverse to something like List of Australian Aboriginal languages by number of speakers. --Ptcamn 18:02, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Sorry, my words were two steps ahead of my plans. I was thinking that all of the endangered languages on this page could be moved off to a new page. I stated it incorrectly.
 * I'm here to report information, not to be an activist. You mistake my intentions.
 * However -- I'm sorry, are you saying that you see POV issues with the statement that "language endangerment is an important issue"? If you're gonna cast the net that broadly, then there is a POV issue with every article on Wikipedia. That is, some people obviously believe these topics are important enough to warrant creation of an article. My understanding of POV is that it deals with contents within an article.Those contents can't reflect the biases of any particular group or individual:
 * A page about language death, then, should quote for example Ladefoged's views on the issue as opposed to merely unadorned assertions that (for example) English and Mandarin Chinese are "language-killers" etc.
 * A page which blithely justifies the imposition of a top-down national language at the expense of endangered languages would also be POV.
 * But a page about endangered languages is not POV simply because the topic is large enough and notable enough (how many thousands of articles in top-notch journals?) to warrant separate consideration.
 * Duplication of information would not be an issue if there were three lists (or perhaps two): living, and (endangered and/or extinct). Migration of information from one list to the other would be a nontrivial hassle in the beginning, but would slow to a trickle after an initial set-up phase.
 * The "too many endangered languages for a separate list" argument sounds precisely backward to me. The reason why topics are split off at any time/in any case is because a subtopic has expanded to the point that it would be more logical to give it its own article.
 * Thanks for your comments, though. I hope that we can see things the same way, after discussion.--Ling.Nut 18:31, 12 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Ah. I thought you intended to create an endangered languages list in addition to the full list, rather than splitting this list into multiple (non-redundant) lists. But I still think it isn't very useful, since the non-endangered languages only number about twenty, and exactly what makes a language "endangered" (and, indeed, "extinct") is arguable. I'd prefer a more objective standard, like speaker population. A list ordered by number of speakers could exist parallel to the alphabetically ordered list. --Ptcamn 18:50, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I'll need to think over the hows and why-fors of this for a while. It's true that the "non-endangered" list would be small, and the "endangered" list large enough to have its own atmosphere.
 * I also suppose that keeping them all on the same page would make migrating a language (for example) from an "endangered" subsection to an "extinct" one a less bothersome operation.
 * However, mere numbers don't define endangerment; instead it's transmission to the younger generation that counts. A "small" language could stabilize with a population of only a couple thousand speakers, but if the socio-cultural environment seemed stable, it wouldn't really be endangered (well.... arguably.. perhaps).
 * And yes I do plan to start a WikiProject about endangered languages, including perhaps language revitalization efforts. But of course, I am a scholar first, last and always (though an extremely humble neophyte). I would be diligent about tracking down POV content.
 * So in summary, I don't have an answer to your suggestion. I would need to think about it. I definitely would want an "endangered" (and probably also "extinct") subsection that I could link to...
 * Cheers --Ling.Nut 19:04, 12 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I think this should be the list, maybe we can add a colum to the languages still spoken saying the number of speakers. But as to the reason why they are endangered of extinct should be on the article page for the language. Also Victorian languages are underrepresented and there affiliation with the Pama-Nyungan language family yet. Enlil Ninlil 05:54, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I respect your thoughts. But unless I'm mistaken, this option does not seem to provide Wikipedia users with a single point where they could find a list of all endangered and/or extinct Australian aboriginal languages... Is that really the way you wish to see the information on Wikipedia bundled and presented? You don't wish to respect the wishes of people who may desire to have this information in a convenient format?
 * Thanks--Ling.Nut 11:07, 13 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Ok I think the lists arnt that important, most of the languages on them arn't writen up yer. Maybe we focus on writing the language articles! Enlil Ninlil 10:29, 14 November 2006 (UTC)


 * OK I have many lists to tend, but will try to move things from my list to here from time to time... I may want to discuss formatting etc... but if you wanna copy stuff from my user page to here go ahead (but please don't delete a copied item from my user page.. I want to keep track.. maybe just put a star by it or something.. whatever...)
 * --Ling.Nut 21:33, 14 November 2006 (UTC)


 * But unless I'm mistaken, this option does not seem to provide Wikipedia users with a single point where they could find a list of all endangered and/or extinct Australian aboriginal languages...
 * There is such a single point. It's here.
 * Does the presence of the 20 or so languages that aren't extinct or endangered alongside the over 200 languages that are really bother you that much? Their status can be put in the "Notes" section, and/or we could add a "speakers" column. --Ptcamn 21:51, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

The fields on my user page: OK to add new table columns to the tables on this page?
Hi,

I like some of the columns in the tables on my user page. Can we discuss adding some columns to the data on this page?

Comments welcomed, --Ling.Nut 22:39, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

large table cut from my user space

 * Here, please take all info as needed. I'm working on other lists/tables. Since ya'll want to keep this one here, it's yours. Ling.Nut (WP:3IAR) 07:42, 31 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Ok I will do something with this in the comming months. Thanks Enlil Ninlil (talk) 06:52, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Important language missing
The language of the Brisbane / Moreton Bay area is missing from this list, Wikipedia, ISO 639, and Ethnologue.

Known as Yagara / Jagara / Yuggera /etc

It has contributed some words to Australian English:
 * "bung" (broken)
 * "dillybag"
 * "yakka" (hard work)

&mdash; Hippietrail (talk) 01:53, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Peerapper?
Is 'Peerapper' a real language? It's on the list... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Toomanycupcakes (talk • contribs) 22:19, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes. The spelling dates from the time when English speakers were generally monolingual and chose spellings that made sense in English, regardless of whether they looked silly. If Australia was just being Anglicized now you probably wouldnt see a lot of place names like Woolloomooloo.  Also rap music wasnt very popular in the 1700s.  This is the first time I've seen the alternate spelling "Pee Rapper", though.  — Soap — 18:51, 25 July 2015 (UTC)


 * H, 'Peerapper' appears as a language name on the AIATSIS Map of Aboriginal Australia, edited by David Horton. As Soap says, it's a almost certainly a very poor representation of the original name, probably written down by someone who had no idea what the sounds actually were so they mapped them to the nearest equivalent in their own variety of English. There's more information about this particular variety here under North-west Tasmania.Dougg (talk) 03:55, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

much new mateial; old info preserved

 * This is a fairly major update. I made every good faith effort to retain all the info that was on the previous version of the page before I updated it. The major change is that I added UNESCO data. I also collapsed the alphabetical subheadings into five groups(A–F, etc.), and made the tables sortable on all fields. Tweak it if you like... Possible problems include:
 * 1) There may be some formatting probs due to non-ASCII characters in language names. Sorry about that, will try to fix...
 * 2) There may be a few duplicate entries under different names (though I tried my best to catch all of those).
 * 3) There may be some unnecessary redlinks, if the target text of redlink "FOO language" actually exists in an article named FOO or "FOO dialect". From time to time I'll try to prune these.
 * That's all I can think of now. Ling.Nut3 (talk) 08:48, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Added some numerical information, removed some duplications
A lot of the major languages had no estimates for number of speakers. I extracted estimates from the WP articles. I also removed some duplicates. There's clearly a lot of work to be done here. There remain duplications, mainly I think because of spelling variation but also because of dialect-clusters, dialects, and established languages being treated equally. Perhaps it would be better to list these by family or cluster rather than alphabetically. Ordinary Person (talk) 16:08, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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Classification of Kayardild
Per currently accepted definitions of Pama-Nyungan languages, I removed the phrase from notes to Kayardild language (which happens to be the only Tangkic language on this page noted as such). Although it's been proposed that Tangkic comes under Greater or Macro-Pama-Nyungan languages, these terms are not interchangeable with Pama-Nyungan. Also changed the spelling of Tangic to Tangkic since it seems more popular now. Ellpicre (talk) 04:32, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 December 2020
Correct typo: change "27 tp 130" to "27 to 130" in the "Speakers" column for Jaminjung language/Djamindjung language Charlobot (talk) 08:48, 18 December 2020 (UTC)


 * fixed... JarrahTree 09:05, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 March 2021 (Reformat to fix thoughless and harmful (half) copying of dead-tree-derived skeuomorphisms (that wouldn't even be usable in the present example anyway))
Merge 5 separate sections (A-F, G-K, L-M, N-U, W-Z) into one.

Having a sortable list like this split into arbitrary and irrelevant groups according to the first letter of the language's name is a thoughtless and harmful skeuomorphism from the limitations of dead-tree technology.

In the original context of dead-tree technology where the skeuomorphism developed, it would've served the purpose of helping a reader who for some reason wanted to look up a specific language in the list, using its name.

But a modern reader should just use ctrl-F for that purpose anyway -- not only because it's far faster, but also, trying to do it the old way would lead to lots of false negatives anyway, when the name they were searching for was an alternate name for the language. (In the dead-tree format, they would've solved this problem by including each alternate name as a separate entry in the list, with a "see MAIN-NAME" note.)

Furthermore, having this arbitrary and irrelevant split prevents modern readers from being able to use the unique new advantages of the sortable list: quickly re-sorting by an actually interesting and relevant feature (like in this case, the number of speakers, or status).

I made the effort to reformat the list and write this note because this thoughtless cargocult-copying of harmful skeuomorphic practices like this is a general problem, far beyond the example of this one article. Kayseychow (talk) 01:43, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

There are numerous Australian Aboriginal languages and dialects, many of which are endangered. An endangered language is one that it is at risk of falling out of use, generally because it has few surviving speakers. If it loses all of its native speakers, it becomes an extinct language.

UNESCO defines four levels of language endangerment between "safe" (not endangered) and "extinct":


 * Vulnerable
 * Definitely endangered
 * Severely endangered
 * Critically endangered

References

External links Some of these sources conflict to some degree with one another.
 * Aboriginal Australia map, a guide to Aboriginal language, tribal and nation groups published by AIATSIS
 * AUSTLANG Australian Indigenous Languages Database at AIATSIS
 * Australian language family trees
 * Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Languages Editor: David Nathan
 * South Australian Museum

Done

2021 Census
The Australian Bureau of Statistics has recently published new results of the 2021 census. To the editor(s) who want to update speaker count, you can use this citation: Cheers, swar e • 🗣 • 🏲 20:56, 13 October 2022 (UTC)


 * A caveat: it should be noted that the Census question (as used in 2021) was: "Does (the Person) use a language other than English at home?". It is clear that this question was interpreted in different ways by different respondents, such that many of the numbers resulting are pretty meaningless. Dougg (talk) 23:38, 14 October 2022 (UTC)