In the lexicostatistic classification of O'Grady, Voegelin and Voegelin, the Daly languages were put in four distinct families.[3]Darrell Tryon combined these into a single family, with the exception of Murrinh-patha.[4][5] However, such methodologies are less effective with languages with a long history of word borrowing.
Linguist Ian Green found that the languages could not be shown to be related by the comparative method, and so should be considered five independent families and language isolates.[6] The features they do share also tend to be shared with neighboring languages outside the Daly group.
The established families (according to Nordlinger) are:
Malak-Malak and Wagaydyic were once considered grouped into a Northern Daly family. Contemporary classifications may use Northern Daly to refer to Malak-Malak to the exclusion of the Wagaydyic languages (as Nordlinger does).
Vocabulary
Capell (1940) lists the following basic vocabulary items for three Daly languages:[7]
^McConvell, Patrick; Evans, Nicholas, eds. (1997). Archaeology and Linguistics: Global Perspectives on Ancient Australia. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
^Tryon, D. T. (1968). "The Daly River languages: a survey". Papers in Australian Linguistics. 3: 21–36.
^Tryon, D. T. (1974). Daly family languages, Australia. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
^ abGreen, I. "The Genetic Status of Murrinh-patha" in Evans, N., ed. "The Non-Pama-Nyungan Languages of Northern Australia: comparative studies of the continent’s most linguistically complex region". Studies in Language Change, 552. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, 2003.
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