Originally, von Brandenstein (1972) described Palyku as the name of a people and Nyiyaparli A50 as the name of the language they speak. Since then, many researchers have considered Palyku and Nyiyaparli to be very closely related languages or the same language.
Dench says (1998), 'all work to date suggests that Nyiyaparli and Palyku are different names for what is essentially the same language'.
The Wangka Maya Pilbara Aboriginal Language Centre 2012 edition of the Nyiyaparli dictionary describes 'Palykutharri' (being the language of the Palyku A55) as a dialect of Nyiyaparli A50, along with Nankilakuthu A108, Martuyitha A109 and Ngulipartu (presumably Ngurlipartu A72, though this relationship is not confirmed elsewhere). The dictionary contains details about these dialect including their locations.
The ABS does not make a distinction between Palyku and Nyiyaparli A50 and thus census data may combine information on both of these.
Upper Fortescue River east of Goodiadarrie Hills; north to the scarp of Chichester Range and to the Nullagine River divide; at Roy Hill and east to the western headwaters of the Oakover and Davis rivers (Tindale 1974).
Contemporary location: Nullagine (Dixon 2011:41).
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Speaker numbers were measured differently across the censuses and various other sources listed in AUSTLANG. You are encouraged to refer to the sources.
Speaker numbers for ‘NILS 2004’ and ‘2005 estimate’ come from 'Table F.3: Numbers of speakers of Australian Indigenous languages (various surveys)' in 'Appendix F NILS endangerment and absolute number results' in McConvell, Marmion and McNicol 2005, pages 198-230 (PDF, 2.5MB).
