Ngumbarl language

Ngumbarl
Region	Australia
Ethnicity	Ngombal
Extinct	documented late 1960s, with few speakers remaining; not known by 1984
Language family	Nyulnyulan Eastern [1] Ngumbarl
Language codes
ISO 639-3	xnm
Linguist List	08s
Glottolog	ngum1253
AIATSIS [2]	K4
ELP	Ngumbarl
Traditional lands of Aboriginal tribes around Derby. Ngumbarl is in orange, in the bottom left
Nyulnyulan languages (purple), of which Ngumbarl is one, among other non-Pama-Nyungan languages (grey)

Ngumbarl (Ngombaru, Ngormbal ^[3] ) is an extinct, poorly-attested Nyulnyulan language formerly spoken in Western Australia, north of the town of Broome along the coast, by the Ngumbarl people. ^[4]

Documentation

The language was previously thought to be unattested. Although Daisy Bates had recorded data, comprising a wordlist and a few sentences, in the early twentieth century with Ngumbarl/Jukun informant Billingee, it had previously been thought the data were only for Jukun. The list contains about 800 words, but the orthography is inconsistent and the translations are somewhat unreliable (e.g. <jooa inja pindana>juwa inja bindana is translated "are you hunting kangaroo?" but actually means "you're going to the pindan"). ^{[5] : 1}

Phonology

It is difficult to infer much about Ngumbarl's phonology, because of the orthography used in its corpus. Claire Bowern reconstructs a tentative sound change of word-final -i in the proto-language to -a (e.g. *yaŋki 'what' to <yanga>yaŋka). ^{[5] : 2}

Grammar

The ergative suffix was -na; if this evolved from *-ni, it matches the previously mentioned sound change from -i to -a. The locative was -kun (compare Proto-Nyulnyuylan's *-kun). ^{[5] : 3}

Very few verbs, and no full paradigms, are found in the data, although there are some partial paradigms, e.g.: ^{[5] : 3–4}

Ngumbarl	English
<kangalainbee> ngangalanybi	I steal
<ingalaimbee> ingalanybi	he steals
<yeeralanbee> yirrlanybi	they steal

Eastern Nyulnyuylan languages have experienced a group of changes in its verbal morphology: ^{[5] : 3}

• Proto-Nyulnyuylan
singular past
intransitive
>
Eastern Nyulnyuylan non-past
intransitive
• PN
singular
present transitive
>
EN
non-past transitive
• PN
plural
present
(both transitive
and
intransitive)
>
EN
non-past plural


Ngumbarl's attested forms are consistent with these — assuming the verb forms were given in the same tense. ^{[5] : 3}

References

1. Bowern, Claire. 2011. "How Many Languages Were Spoken in Australia?", Anggarrgoon: Australian languages on the web, December 23, 2011 (corrected February 6, 2012)
2. K4 Ngumbarl at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
3. "Glottolog 5.1 - Ngumbarl". glottolog.org. Retrieved 16 February 2025.
4. "Did you know Ngumbarl is dormant?". Endangered Languages. Retrieved 16 February 2025.
5. Bowern, Claire (2 May 2010). "Two Missing Pieces in a Nyulnyulan Jigsaw Puzzle". LSA Annual Meeting Extended Abstracts. 1: 48:1–5. doi:10.3765/exabs.v0i0.528. ISSN   2377-3367.