Australia: most spoken Indigenous languages 2021

With approximately 7.5 thousand recorded speakers, the Yumplatok (Torres Strait Creole) language is the most spoken Indigenous language in Australia in 2021, and is spoken primarily in Bamaga and Surrounds, TRAWQ (Thursday Island), and Port Kennedy (Thursday Island). Kriol had the second highest number of speakers at the time of the census.

Leading Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages spoken in Australia in 2021, by number of speakers

Characteristic	Number of speakers
Yumplatok (Torres Strait Creole)	7,596
Kriol	7,403
Australian Indigenous Languages, nfd(a)	4,197
Djambarrpuyngu	3,839
Pitjantjatjara	3,399
Other Australian Indigenous Languages, nec (b)	2,863
Cape York Peninsula Languages, nec	2,688
Warlpiri	2,592
Murrinh Patha	2,063
Tiwi	2,053

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Release date

October 2022

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Region

Australia

Survey time period

2021

Supplementary notes

Only the top six languages in terms of speaker numbers depicted.

Australian Indigenous Languages nfd is a supplementary code in the Australian Standard Classification of Languages (ASCL) and is not considered a language group.
Not elsewhere classified ‘nec’ is for any language which is not separately identified in the ASCL because it does not meet the threshold for the minimum number of speakers.

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