Civil Rights
Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
Explore the people, places, events, achievements, struggles and stories that shaped our journey.
Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
Innovation, patents, science, technology and world-changing contributions.
Pioneers, champions, Negro Leagues, records, activism and excellence.
Meet the people whose lives, choices and achievements shaped the journey.
Black towns, communities, institutions and places where history happened.
Moments that changed communities, movements, institutions and the nation.
Katherine Johnson’s mathematical calculations helped guide some of America’s most important early space missions while she confronted the racial and gender barriers faced by Black women in twentieth-century America.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
| Garawan | |
|---|---|
| Yanyi, Garrwan | |
| Geographic distribution | Northern Territory and Queensland |
| Linguistic classification | Macro-Pama–Nyungan?
|
| Subdivisions | |
| Language codes | |
| Glottolog | garr1260 |
Garawan and Tangkic (green). Garawan is the group inland. | |
The Garawan languages (Garrwan), or Yanyi, are a small language family of Australian Aboriginal languages currently spoken in northern Australia.
The languages are:
Gunindiri is almost entirely unknown.[1]
Garawan may be related to the Pama–Nyungan languages, though this is not accepted in Bowern 2011.[2] The languages are close: Dixon (2002)[citation needed] says that it should be straightforward to reconstruct proto-Garawa–Wanji.
Capell (1940) lists the following basic vocabulary items:[3]
| gloss | Garama | Waneiga |
|---|---|---|
| man | gadu | jäba |
| woman | balŋun | ludju |
| head | bɛlbid | gada |
| eye | gamal | milba |
| nose | djimu | mulju |
| mouth | dädbi | lira |
| tongue | djɛman | djälaṉ |
| stomach | maːda | miälu |
| bone | munu | gidji |
| blood | gumuluŋ | djugän |
| kangaroo | ŋalmuŋgu | maɭu |
| opossum | jaːɭ | djaŋana |
| crow | waːg | djäŋilga |
| fly | moːl | ŋurin |
| sun | ŋuŋa | wanda |
| moon | mɛrg | girindji |
| fire | ḏuŋgu | waɽu |
| smoke | wanag | gundjuru |
| water | goɽa | gabi |
Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
The Garawan languages (Garrwan), or Yanyi, are a small language family of Australian Aboriginal languages currently spoken in northern Australia. The languages are: Garawan may be related to the Pama–Nyungan languages, though this is not accepted in Bowern 2011. The languages are close: Dixon (2002) says that it should be straightforward to reconstruct proto-Garawa–Wanji.
Australian Aboriginal languages are those languages spoken by Australian Aboriginal people. There are more than 250 distinct languages. Australian languages have historically been classified into numerous language families. The largest single language family is the Pama-Nyungan family, which covers approximately seven eighths of the continent; the remaining languages sometimes called "non-Pama-Nyungan" as a term of convenience, are clustered together in the north-west, and have been classified into over twenty separate families. Despite the diversity of Australian languages, many linguists have considered for decades that most languages of the Australian continent, including Pama-Nyungan, are members of one higher-level family. A proto-language, Proto-Australian, was reconstructed for the first time in 2024. Proto-Australian is dated to approximately 6,000 years before the present; how it spread across the continent, replacing earlier languages, is as yet unclear. There have always been some Australian languages excluded from larger groupings as language isolates; currently, Tiwi and the Tasmanian languages are considered unrelated to Proto-Australian. Of the languages of the Torres Strait, Kala Lagaw Ya is a Pama-Nyungan language, while Meriam Mer is a Papuan language. At the start of the 21st century, fewer than 150 Aboriginal languages remained in daily use, with the majority being highly endangered. In 2020, 90 percent of the barely more than 100 languages still spoken are considered endangered. Thirteen languages are still being acquired by children. The surviving languages are located in the most isolated areas. Of the five least endangered Western Australian Aboriginal languages, four belong to the Western Desert grouping of the Central and Great Victoria Desert. In 2026 the most widely-spoken languages by Australian Aboriginal people are those whose origins post-date the colonisation of Australia; these languages include Australian Kriol, Australian Aboriginal English, and Light Warlpiri.
The Pama–Nyungan languages ( PAH-mə-NYOONG-ən) are the most widespread family of Australian Aboriginal languages, comprising 306 of the 400 Aboriginal languages of Australia. The name "Pama–Nyungan" is a merism: it is derived from the two end-points of the range, the Pama languages of northeast Australia (where the word for 'man' is pama) and the Nyungan languages of southwest Australia (where the word for 'man' is nyunga). The other language families indigenous to the continent of Australia are often referred to, by exclusion, as non-Pama–Nyungan languages, though this is not a taxonomic term. The Pama–Nyungan family accounts for most of the geographic spread, most of the Aboriginal population, and the greatest number of languages. Most of the Pama–Nyungan languages are spoken by small ethnic groups of hundreds of speakers or fewer. Many languages have become extinct, and almost all remaining ones are endangered in some way. Only in the central inland portions of the continent do Pama–Nyungan languages continue to be spoken vigorously by the entire community. The first descriptions of languages from this family were found in missionary grammars from the early 19th century, but the Pama–Nyungan family itself was identified and named only by Kenneth L. Hale in his work on the classification of Native Australian languages. Hale's research led him to the conclusion that of the Aboriginal Australian languages, one relatively closely interrelated family had spread and proliferated over most of the continent, while approximately a dozen other families were concentrated along the North coast.
Macro-Pama-Nyungan is an umbrella term used to refer to a proposed Indigenous Australian language family. It was coined by the Australian linguist Nicholas Evans in his 1996 book Archaeology and linguistics: Aboriginal Australia in global perspective, co-authored by Patrick McConvell. The term arose from Evans' theory suggesting that two of the largest Indigenous Australian language families share a common origin, and should therefore be classified as a singular language family under "Macro-Pama-Nyungan". The two main families that Evans refers to are the Macro-Gunwinyguan family from Northern Australia, and the most widespread Pama–Nyungan family that spans across mainland and Southern Australia. The different theories regarding Australian linguistic prehistory and Australian language family evolution are widely debated, therefore Macro-Pama-Nyungan is an inconclusive language family classification that is often dissented by linguists in the Aboriginal Australian language community. The legitimacy of the Macro-Pama-Nyungan classification and supporting theories remain open to question since language reconstruction of Indigenous Australian language families is in its early stages.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Mae Jemison, aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1992.