All of the indigenous languages spoken by Australia's Aboriginal peoples branched out from one language that was spoken in a small area in northern Australia around 10,000 years ago, new research has suggested

Around 250 distinct indigenous languages were spoken in Australia when European explorers first landed in the continent in the late 18th century. "Until now, it was speculated that Australia was significantly more linguistically diverse than somewhere like Europe, because it had not been proven that all Australian languages actually stemmed from the same lineage," said Associate Prof Mark Harvey from the University of Newcastle, Australia. However, a three-year study of the Aboriginal languages by researchers from the University of Newcastle and Western Sydney University has now revealed that they are derived from one language: Proto-Australian. "We discovered that the sounds of words we compared showed recurrent systematic differences and similarities across a set of languages that are spread out in a geographically discontinuous way – which makes it very unlikely that they are the result of chance or language contact," said Robert Mailhammer from Western Sydney University. "While a multitude of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages were spoken at the time of European settlement, the findings also imply that indigenous Australian languages only spread after the end of the last ice age, some 10,000-12,000 years ago." “This is the first demonstration that all Australian languages are part of the same language family.”

He said this language likely spread across Australia from a small area in the country’s north that was first populated thousands of years ago. The research, published in the Diachronica linguistics journal, is the first to prove that all of those languages came from the same family, said linguists at the University of Newcastle, Australia and Western Sydney University.
The linguistics journal Diachronica publishes Australian research implying that a tracement of the country's indigenous languages can be made back to a single, common language known as Proto-Australian, which was spoken around 10,000-years ago.