KV(Ŋ)KV -Kinship Terms in the Australian Aboriginal Languages:First Part:Kaka 'Mother's Brother'

Abstract

Here, I report the pervasive distribution in numerous Aboriginal language groups all over Australia, of kinship terms with similar phonetic shapes and meanings, such as kaka MB, FZH, EF. It is argued that this distribution is consistent with the antiquity of this term in the language families in which it is found. Further, its pervasive presence in non-Pama-Nyungan (non-PNy) as well as in Pama-Nyungan (PNy) languages, is consistent with inheritance from a higher taxonomic level, possibly Proto-Australian, and beyond, and even possibly from the proto-language spoken by the first modern men who colonized Sahul. Likewise, the assumed existence of Kariera-like terminologies in the higher nodes in the Australian language phylum is consistent with the claim that the Proto-Australian kinship system was Kariera-like.