Gunwinyguan

The Gunwinyguan languages form a proposed non-Pama–Nyungan family spread across Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. Its core includes Kunwinjku, also called Gunwinggu, spoken in western Arnhem Land around Gunbalanya, as well as Kunbarlang, Jawoyn, Dalabon, Rembarrnga and Ngalakgan. A wider Arnhem, or Macro-Gunwinyguan, grouping adds eastern tongues such as Nunggubuyu, Ngandi and the Anindilyakwa of Groote Eylandt.

Their kinship rests mainly on shared verb morphology. When the first British colony in Australia was founded in 1788, Makassan trepang fishermen from Sulawesi were already sailing to the northern coast; their pidgin became a trade lingua franca and left Makassarese loanwords such as balanda, meaning white person, in the Arnhem languages.