Australian language
Australia legally has no official language. However, English is by far the most commonly spoken and has been entrenched as the ''de facto'' national language since European settlement. "English has no de jure status but it is so entrenched ...
of the Mirndi language groupNordlinger, Rachel. (1998), ''A Grammar Of Wambaya, Northern Territory (Australia),'' p. 1. that is spoken in the
Barkly Tableland
The Barkly Tableland is a rolling plain of grassland in Australia. It runs from the eastern part of the Northern Territory into western Queensland. It is one of the five regions in the Northern Territory and covers , 21% of the Northern Terr ...
of 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 ...
.Ethnologue /ref> Wambaya and the other members of the
West Barkly languages
The Ngurlun languages, also known as Eastern Mirndi, are a branch of the Mirndi languages spoken around in the Barkly Tableland of Northern Territory, Australia. The branch consists of two to four languages, depending on what is considered a d ...
are somewhat unusual in that they are
suffix
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry ...
prefix
A prefix is an affix which is placed before the Word stem, stem of a word. Adding it to the beginning of one word changes it into another word. For example, when the prefix ''un-'' is added to the word ''happy'', it creates the word ''unhappy'' ...
ing.
The language was reported to have 12 speakers in 1981, and some reports indicate that the language went
extinct
Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...
as a first language. However, in the 2011 Australian census 56 people stated that they speak Wambaya at home. That number increased to 61 in the 2016 Census.
Rachel Nordlinger
Rachel Nordlinger is an Australian linguist and a professor at The University of Melbourne.
Education
After completing a master's degree at The University of Melbourne, she received her PhD in linguistics in 1997 from Stanford University.
Resea ...
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 ...
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".
Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), established as the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (AIAS) in 1964, is an independent Australian Government statutory authority. It is a collecting, ...
Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), established as the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (AIAS) in 1964, is an independent Australian Government statutory authority. It is a collecting, ...