How many Australian Aboriginal languages are there?

Up to 700 Australian Aboriginal languages were spoken in Australia before European settlement. Now, it’s about 150 – although the vast majority of these are considered endangered.

Before Europeans arrived in Australia and called it Australia, there were hundreds of different Aboriginal groups across the continent. Nobody really knows how many different Australian Aboriginal languages were spoken throughout the continent. That said, the AUSTLANG project is attempting to create a detailed picture.

The best guess is that there were between 300 and 700 different languages spoken across the country. Many were similar, and the hypothetical Pama-Nyungan family is applied to group the indigenous languages across the east and south-west of Australia.

Detailed information on the pre-European settlement languages of Australia is difficult to put together. This is mainly because none of the languages are written languages.

Establishing the boundaries between Aboriginal groups is not an exact science either. That said, the AIATSIS map is incredibly useful for understanding just how many ‘countries’ there are in Australia. Anyone visiting Australia should consider it required viewing.

Remaining Australian Aboriginal languages

According to the 2016 census, around 150 Aboriginal languages are still spoken at home. However, 90% of these are considered endangered, spoken by only a handful of people, and not at all by children.

The census data showed that there were 649,171 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in Australia. That’s around 2.8% of the total population. Of them, 63,800 spoke an Indigenous language at home.

The most common language groups, which can contain several languages, were those from the Arnhemland and Daly River region (16.1%), Torres Strait Islands (11.7%) and Western Deserts (11.1%).

Most spoken Aboriginal language

The most common single language was Djambarrpuyngu, spoken in the Arnhem Land region of the Northern Territory. The census data stated that just 4,262 people spot Djambarrpuyngu. Second was Pitjantjatjara, a Western Deserts language spoken around the remote area where South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory intersect. This language had 3,054 speakers.

With such small numbers speaking each language, and with 85% of Indigenous Australians speaking English either well or very well, it’s easy to see why Australian Aboriginal languages are dying out. In many cases, it’s now about trying to preserve a record of the language rather than the spoken language itself.

By the way, there is no official language of Australia.