Methods & sources
How this atlas is sourced
The atlas is assembled from open scholarly datasets and served as versioned static artifacts — never a live database query. The full methodology page (canonical-set derivation, join keys, coverage tables and downloadable CSV/GeoJSON/CLDF bundles with a citation) arrives in a later phase; the upstream sources and standing caveats are below, in the open, now. Data release 1.1.0.
Upstream datasets
| Dataset | Version | Licence | Used for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Glottolog | 5.3 CLDF | CC-BY-4.0 | classification, coordinates, ISO/glottocode, AES endangerment |
| Grambank | v1.0.3 CLDF | CC-BY-4.0 | grammatical feature profiles (195 features) |
| WALS | 2020.4 CLDF | CC-BY-4.0 | supplementary grammatical features (coded values baked into grammar.features) |
| Australianist typology extension (AUS extension) | mobtranslate-pg typology plane | CC-BY-4.0 (derived) | Australia-specific grammatical features + recorded-agreement similarity (grammar.features, related[]) |
| AIATSIS AUSTLANG | data.gov.au export | CC-BY-4.0 | canonical AU language codes, approx. coordinates, alt-names |
| Bouckaert, Bowern & Atkinson 2018 (Phlorest) | phlorest CLDF | CC-BY-4.0 | dated Pama-Nyungan phylogeographic tree (deep_time) |
| PHOIBLE | referenced | CC-BY-SA-3.0 | phonological inventories (pointer; not ingested in P0) |
| E. M. Curr, The Australian Race (1886-87) | archive.org OCR | Public Domain | historical locality wordlists (live DB curr_* + appendix) |
| English Wiktionary | kaikki.org export | CC-BY-SA-4.0 | open lexical resources for some languoids |
| mobtranslate-pg (live DB) | read-only snapshot @ 2026-07-12T00:00:00Z | mixed (see per-source) | live lexical word-counts |
Standing caveats
- A spreading language lineage is NOT a moving/arriving population. Bouckaert root age ~5,578 BP dates the Pama-Nyungan LINGUISTIC spread across an already long-populated continent (~65,000 yr of presence).
- state/jurisdiction is null for all languoids: not present in the open Glottolog/AUSTLANG exports.
- Autonyms are UNVERIFIED candidates drawn from alt-names (which conflate endonyms with spelling variants); never asserted as confirmed.
- Derived-centroid coordinates are a drawing convenience (mean of sibling-leaf coords), not a claim about where a language is spoken; flagged approximate + provenance=derived_centroid.
- Curr 1886-87 OCR wordlists are historical sources, not modern language identities.
Attribution & respect
With thanks to Glottolog, Grambank, WALS, PHOIBLE, D-PLACE, AIATSIS AUSTLANG, and Bouckaert, Bowern & Atkinson, whose open work makes this possible — and, above all, to the language communities and custodians whose knowledge this records. Historical (19th-century) wordlists are shown as colonial sources, not community-approved lexicons. Communities are the final authority on their own languages.