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]
Wambaya | |
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McArthur River | |
Native to | Australia |
Region | Barkly Tableland, Northern Territory |
Ethnicity | Wambaya, Gudanji, Binbinga |
Native speakers | 43 (2021 census)[1] (24 Wambaya; 19 Gudanji) |
Language family | |
Dialects |
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Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | Either:wmb – Wambayanji – Gudanji |
Glottolog | wamb1258 |
AIATSIS[2] | C19 Wambaya, C26 Gurdanji, N138 Binbinga |
ELP | Wambaya |
Binbinka[3] |
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]
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Pama–Nyungan subgroups |
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Tangkic | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Garrwan | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Macro-Gunwinyguan ? |
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Iwaidjan |
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Darwin Region ? |
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Daly River Sprachbund |
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Mirndi |
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Jarrakan |
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Bunuban |
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Worrorran | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Nyulnyulan |
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isolates | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tasmanian family-level groups |
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