Darwin Region languages

Darwin Region
(proposed)
Geographic distribution	from Darwin area to the West Alligator River
Linguistic classification	Proposed language family.
Subdivisions	Laragiya Limilngan Umbugarla  ?
Language codes
Glottolog	None lara1258  (Laragia) limi1242  (Limilngan-Wulna) umbu1235  (Umbugarla)
Darwin Region languages (red), among other non-Pama–Nyungan languages (grey).
Closeup. From west to east they are: Laragiya, Limilngan, and Umbugarlic.

The Darwin Region languages are a family of Australian Aboriginal languages of northern Australia proposed by linguist Mark Harvey^{[ citation needed ]}. It unites the pair of Limilngan languages with two language isolates: ^[1]

• Darwin Region
  • Laragiya (nearly extinct)
  • Limilngan
    • Limilngan †
    • Wulna †
  • Umbugarlic
    • Umbugarla †
    • Ngurmbur?
    • Bugurnidja?

Ngurmbur and Bugurnidja are poorly attested extinct languages, which are joined with Umbugarla to form the Umbugarlic branch.

Tryon (2007) lists the following varieties of Umbugarla–Ngumbur:

Ngunbudj (Gonbudj), Umbugarla, Bugunidja, Ngarduk, Ngumbur.

However, nothing is known of Ngunbudj or Ngarduk, which were extinct by World War II.

References

1. Bowern, Claire. 2011. "How Many Languages Were Spoken in Australia?", Anggarrgoon: Australian languages on the web, 23 December 2011 (corrected 6 February 2012)