Wambaya language

Last updated
Wambaya
McArthur River
Native to Australia
Region Barkly Tableland, Northern Territory
Ethnicity Wambaya, Gudanji, Binbinga
Native speakers
43 (2021 census) [1]
(24 Wambaya; 19 Gudanji)
Mirndi
Dialects
  • Wambaya
  • Gudanji
  • Binbinka
Language codes
ISO 639-3 Either:
wmb   Wambaya
nji   Gudanji
Glottolog wamb1258
AIATSIS [2] C19  Wambaya, C26  Gurdanji, N138  Binbinga
ELP Wambaya
  Binbinka [3]

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]

Contents

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

Peripheral Laminal Apical
Labial Velar Palatal Alveolar Retroflex
Stop bɡɟdɖ
Nasal mŋɲnɳ
Lateral ʎlɭ
Rhotic ɾ ~ rɻ
Approximant wj

Vowels

Front Back
High ɪ, iːʊ, uː
Low a, aː

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. 1 2 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". Archived from the original on 10 May 2018. Retrieved 21 October 2012.
  8. "2016 Census: Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Peoples QuickStats - Tennant Creek". www.censusdata.abs.gov.au. Archived from the original on 10 May 2018. 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.