Kalaw Lagaw Ya has only 6% cognation with its closest Australian neighbour, Urradhi, with a further 5% 'common' vocabulary (loans of various origins) — and about 40% common vocabulary with its Papuan neighbour, Meriam Mìr. Of the 279 Proto-Paman forms given in , only 18.9% have definite realisations in Kalaw Lagaw Ya, with a further 2.5% which may be present. One word that illustrates the problems of 'may-be' relationship is "kùlbai" (KKY "kùlba") 'old', which may be a metathetic realisation of CA "*bulgan" 'big; old'. Potentially 80% of the vocabulary of the language is non-Australian, and includes Papuan and Austronesian items. Bouckaert, Bowern and Atkinson (2018) found that Kalaw Lagaw Ya had the highest number of 'unique' (that is, otherwise unshared) forms of any Australian language in their sample.