Kanyara languages

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The Kanyara languages is the name given by linguists to a group of closely related languages in the southern Pilbara region of Western Australia.

The four languages classified as members of the Kanyara languages group are:

Pinikura
Payungu
Purduna
Thalanyji

These languages are spoken in the region between the mouths of the Gascoyne River and the Ashburton River, along the coast and extending inland.

The name kanyara comes from the word for 'man' in the four languages. The Kanyara group is a member of the South-West branch of the Pama-Nyungan family. The Kanyara languages grouping was first proposed by Austin (1988) based on lexical, morphological and syntactic criteria.

[edit] References

Austin, Peter. 1988. 'Classification of Southern Pilbara languages' Papers in Australian Linguistics no. 17, 1-17; PL A-71. Pacific Linguistics: Canberra