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Wambaya language

Wambaya is a Non-Pama-Nyungan West Barkly Australian language of the Mirndi language group[4] that is spoken in the Barkly Tableland of the Northern Territory, Australia.[5] Wambaya and the other members of the West Barkly languages are somewhat unusual in that they are suffixing languages, unlike most Non-Pama-Nyungan languages which are prefixing.[4]

The language was reported to have 12 speakers in 1981, and some reports indicate that the language went extinct as a first language.[6] However, in the 2011 Australian census 56 people stated that they speak Wambaya at home.[7] That number increased to 61 in the 2016 Census.[8]

Rachel Nordlinger notes that the speech of the Wambaya, Gudanji and Binbinka people "are clearly dialects" of a single language, which she calls "McArthur", while Ngarnga is closely related but is "probably best considered a language of its own".[9]

Phonology

Consonants

Vowels

References

  1. ^ Australian Bureau of Statistics (2021). "Cultural diversity: Census". Retrieved 13 October 2022.
  2. ^ C19 Wambaya at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies  (see the info box for additional links)
  3. ^ Endangered Languages Project data for Binbinka.
  4. ^ a b Nordlinger, Rachel. (1998), A Grammar Of Wambaya, Northern Territory (Australia), p. 1.
  5. ^ Ethnologue
  6. ^ Bender, Emily M. (2008), Evaluating a Crosslinguistic Grammar Resource: A Case Study of Wambaya, p. 2
  7. ^ "2011 Census QuickStats: Tennant Creek".
  8. ^ "2016 Census: Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Peoples QuickStats - Tennant Creek". www.censusdata.abs.gov.au. Retrieved 9 May 2018.
  9. ^ Nordlinger, Rachel (1998). A Grammar of Wambaya, Northern Territory (Australia) (PDF). Pacific Linguistics. pp. 2–3.
  10. ^ Nordlinger, Rachel (1998). A Grammar Of Wambaya, Northern Territory (Australia). Pacific Linguistics. pp. 17–22.

External links


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