The Mirndi or Mindi languages are an

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Au ...

language family A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in hist ...

spoken in the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. The family consists of two sub-groups, the Yirram languages and the Barkly languages some 200 km farther to the southeast, separated by the Ngumpin languages. The primary difference between the two sub-groups is that while the Yirram languages are all prefixing like other

non-Pama–Nyungan languages The Indigenous languages of Australia number in the hundreds, the precise number being quite uncertain, although there is a range of estimates from a minimum of around 250 (using the technical definition of 'language' as non-mutually intellig ...

, the Barkly languages are all suffixing like most

Pama–Nyungan languages The Pama–Nyungan languages are the most widespread family of Australian Aboriginal languages, containing 306 out of 400 Aboriginal languages in Australia. The name "Pama–Nyungan" is a merism: it derived from the two end-points of the range: ...

. The name of the family is derived from the dual inclusive

pronoun In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not co ...

('we', in the sense of 'you and I') which is shared by all the languages in the family in the form of either ''mind-'' or .

Classification

The family has been generally accepted after being first established by Neil Chadwick in the early 1980s. The genetic relationship is primarily based upon

morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines * Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts * Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies ...

and not lexical comparison, with the strongest evidence being found among the pronouns. However, "there are very few other systematic similarities in other areas of grammar whichthrow some doubts on the Mirndi classification, making it less secure than generally accepted." Nonetheless, as of 2008 proto-Mirndi has been reconstructed. An additional language may be added, Ngaliwurru. However, it is unsure whether it is a language on its own, or merely a

dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of Linguistics, linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety (linguisti ...

of the

Jaminjung language Jaminjung is a moribund Australian language spoken around the Victoria River in the Northern Territory of Australia. There seems to be a steady increase in the number of speakers of the language with very few people speaking the language in 1 ...

. The same is true for

Gudanji The Gudanji, otherwise known as the Kotandji or Ngandji, are an indigenous Australian people of the Northern Territory. Language The Gudanji were formerly thought to speak a Ngurlun languages, Ngurlun language, belonging to the eastern Mirndi la ...

and

Binbinka The Binbinga, also pronounced Binbinka, are an Indigenous Australian people of the Northern Territory of Australia. Language Binbinga is a dialect classified as a variety of Ngurlun languages, the Ngurlun branch of the Mirndi languages, closely r ...

, although these are generally considered dialects of the

Wambaya language Wambaya is a Non-Pama-Nyungan West Barkly Australian language of the Mirndi language groupNordlinger, Rachel. (1998), ''A Grammar Of Wambaya, Northern Territory (Australia),'' p. 1. that is spoken in the Barkly Tableland of the Northern Terr ...

. These three dialects are collectively referred to as the

McArthur River The McArthur River is a river in the Northern Territory of Australia which flows into the Gulf of Carpentaria at Port McArthur, opposite the Sir Edward Pellew Group of Islands. The river was named by Ludwig Leichhardt while he explored the are ...

languages.

Vocabulary

Due to the close contact been the Yirram languages and the Barkly languages, and the Ngumpin languages and other languages as well, many of the

cognate In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymology, etymological ancestor in a proto-language, common parent language. Because language c ...

s that the Yirram and Barkly languages share may in fact be loanwords, especially of Ngumpin origin. For instance, while the Barkly language Jingulu only shares 9% of its vocabulary with its Yirram relative, the

Ngaliwurru dialect Jaminjung is a moribund Australian language spoken around the Victoria River in the Northern Territory of Australia. There seems to be a steady increase in the number of speakers of the language with very few people speaking the language in 1 ...

of the

, it shares 28% with the nearby Ngumpin language

Mudburra The Mudburra, also spelt Mudbara and other variants, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Northern Territory. Language Mudburra is one of the far eastern forms of the Pama-Nyungan Ngumbin languages. Country The Mudburra people live in ...

. Within the Barkly branch, the

Jingulu language Jingulu, also spelt Djingili, is an Australian language spoken by the Jingili people in the Northern Territory of Australia, historically around the township of Elliot. The language is one of several languages of the West Barkly family. The J ...

shares 29% and 28% of its vocabulary with its closest relatives, the

and the

Ngarnka language The Ngarnji (Ngarndji) or Ngarnka (Ngarnga, Ngarnku) language was traditionally spoken by the Ngarnka people of the Barkly Tablelands in the Northern Territory of Australia. The last fluent speaker of the language died between 1997 and 1998. ...

, respectively. The

shares 60% of its vocabulary with the

, while the

shares 69% and 78% with its

and

, respectively. Finally, these two dialects share 88% of their vocabulary.

Capell Capell or Capel is a surname. Notable people with the name include: Capell * Arthur Capell, 1st Baron Capell of Hadham (1608–1649), English politician * Arthur Capell, 1st Earl of Essex (1631–1683), English statesman * Arthur Capell (1902–1 ...

(1940) lists the following basic vocabulary items:Capell, Arthur. 1940
The Classification of Languages in North and North-West Australia
''Oceania'' 10(3): 241-272, 404-433. :

Proto-language

Proto-Mirndi reconstructions by Harvey (2008): :

References

Notes

12. Chadwick, Neil (1997) "The Barkly and Jaminjungan Languages: A Non-Contiguous Genetic Grouping In North Australia" in Tryon, Darrell, Walsh, Michael, eds. Boundary Rider: Essays in honour of Geoffrey O'Grady. Pacific Linguistics, C-136

General

* {{language families Indigenous Australian languages in the Northern Territory Language families Non-Pama-Nyungan languages