Nyulnyulan

The Nyulnyulan languages are a small non-Pama Nyungan family of the Kimberley coast of northern Western Australia, centered on the Dampier Peninsula north of Broome and its neighboring islands and sounds. They divide into western and eastern branches; the members are so close that several were mutually intelligible.

Bardi, spoken by the sea-oriented Bardi people at the tip of the peninsula and on the offshore islands, is one of the western languages. When European ships first reached Australian waters, beginning with the Dutch landing of 1606, these tongues had no writing and were maintained entirely by oral tradition.