The study undertaken by researchers from the University of Newcastle and Western Sydney University said this finding signifies the first time the theory that all Australian languages derive from one language, Proto-Australian, has been proven.

Stan Grant Senior has been a driving force for keeping the Wiradjuri language alive and ‘doesn’t believe’ the study. 

“Our language was given to us by the almighty, and that’s our language, Wiradjuris are Wiradjuris,”  Dr Grant said. 

Wiradjuri man, Mark Saddler, said he agrees with the point that Dr Grant is making. 

"Our Wiradjuri language is integral to our area and our people, it connects us to our land and our country and it's unique for our Wiradjuri people,” he said. 

“Language and Aboriginal culture can be a little bit universal, but each different clan is unique.

"There may be similarities but it's not all the same. Our mother tongue connects us to where we come from in the motherland and it's unique." 

UON Chief Investigator and historical linguist, Associate Professor Mark Harvey, said the finding was an exciting culmination of a three-year project.

“This is the first demonstration that all Australian languages are part of the same language family. This language family spread across all of Australia, presumably from a small area in Northern Australia,” he said. 

"This spread is likely to have been carried out by at least some population movement whose material and genetic traces have remained somewhat elusive.However, with further interdisciplinary research, this new linguistic evidence is likely to give us a more precise reconstruction of Australian prehistory from what is currently known.”

WSU Chief Investigator, Associate Professor Robert Mailhammer, said the findings revealed recurrent similarities between languages that were not in contact.

“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,” he said.