In Australia there are more than 250
Before British colonisation, over 250 languages and 800 dialects were spoken in Australia. The active preservation, recording and promotion of these languages is necessary for their survival.
There were many dialects within each language group. Today, only 120 First Languages are still spoken.
Paakantyi. This Australian Aboriginal language is still spoken in regions alongside the Darling River, but only by a few people.
The results traced Pama-Nyungan back to a site south of the Gulf of Carpentaria, and indicate it emerged in the mid-Holocene period 4,000 to 6,000 years ago and rapidly replacing the existing languages.
For the majority of the period since white colonisation of Australia, various policies have had the effect of subverting Indigenous Australian languages. Consequently many Indigenous languages have been lost and many others are in danger of being lost.
There is no one Aboriginal word that all Aborigines use for Australia; however, today they call Australia, ""Australia"" because that is what it is called today. There are more than 250 aboriginal tribes in Australia. Most of them didn't have a word for ""Australia""; they just named places around them.
'Aborigine' is generally perceived as insensitive, because it has racist connotations from Australia's colonial past, and lumps people with diverse backgrounds into a single group. You're more likely to make friends by saying 'Aboriginal person', 'Aboriginal' or 'Torres Strait Islander'.
⟨ʔ⟩ or 7 represent a glottal stop. Glottalization can occur on a variety of consonants (w, y, l, m, n), and after or before vowels.
Some of the better-known languages are Arrente, Pitjantjatjara and Warlpiri in Central Australia, Kriol, Murrinh-patha in Wadeye, and Yolngu and Gunwinyguan languages in Arnhem Land.
In the United States, the Navajo language is the most spoken Native American language, with more than 200,000 speakers in the Southwestern United States.
Of the 60 or more Indigenous languages in Canada, just three — Cree, Inuktitut and Ojibwa — are stable and viable; they account for nearly two-thirds of the nearly 229,000 Canadians who claim an Indigenous language as mother tongue and who regularly speak that language in the home.
Cree languages, Inuktitut and Ojibway are the most frequently reported Aboriginal languages.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island languages
Over 250 Australian Aboriginal languages are thought to have existed at the time of first European contact.
Assimilationist terms such as 'full-blood,' 'half-caste' and 'quarter-caste' are extremely offensive and should never be used when referring to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Koori (or Koorie)
Koori is a term denoting an Aboriginal person of southern New South Wales or Victoria. 'Koori' is not a synonym for 'Aboriginal'. There are many other Aboriginal groups across Australia (such as Murri, Noongar, Yolngu) with which Indigenous Australians may identify themselves.
The islands were settled by different seafaring Melanesian cultures such as the Torres Strait Islanders over 2500 years ago, and cultural interactions continued via this route with the Aboriginal people of northeast Australia.
The town name Gin Gin has sometimes been said to derive from a local Aboriginal word indicating "red soil thick scrub".
After Dutch navigators charted the northern, western and southern coasts of Australia during the 17th Century this newly found continent became known as 'New Holland'.
Country is the term often used by Aboriginal peoples to describe the lands, waterways and seas to which they are connected. The term contains complex ideas about law, place, custom, language, spiritual belief, cultural practice, material sustenance, family and identity.
Indigenous comes from the Latin word indigena, which means “sprung from the land; native.” Therefore, using “Indigenous” over “Aboriginal” reinforces land claims and encourages territory acknowledgements, a practice which links Indigenous Peoples to their land and respects their claims over it.
Boorie: Boy, child.
Based on the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) projections, the number of Indigenous Australians in 2021 was estimated to be 881,600. The Indigenous Australian population is projected to reach about 1.1 million people by 2031 (ABS 2019b).