Yirandhali (Yirandali, Jirandali), also known as Pooroga, is an extinct Australian Aboriginal language of

Hughenden Hughenden may refer to: *Hughenden, Queensland, a town in Australia *Hughenden, Alberta, a village in central Alberta, Canada *Hughenden Valley Hughenden Valley (formerly called Hughenden or Hitchendon) is an extensive village and civil parish in ...

in Central Queensland.Foundingdocs website
/ref> Yirandhali is a Pama–Nyungan language. Dixon (2002) speculates that it may belong in the Maric branch of that family, but further research is required before this can be verified, due to the limited lexical material that is available in the language.Dixon, Robert (2002) ''Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development''. . There is very little information available about the languages of this region. Oral recounts suggest that the town area of Hughenden was a place that was passed through rather than a place that was used as a regular campsite. The

Flinders River The Flinders River is the longest river in Queensland, Australia, at approximately . It was named in honour of the explorer Matthew Flinders. The catchment is sparsely populated and mostly undeveloped. The Flinders rises on the western slopes o ...

is often a dry river bed. At the nearby Porcupine Gorge, in an area known locally as 'the Tattoos', there are signs of Aboriginal rock drawings. This area would have been a more reliable source of water.

Classification

A Pama–Nyungan language, Dixon (2002) speculated that the language may belong in the Maric subfamily, and this is accepted in Bowern (2011), but this cannot be verified, due to the limited lexical material available.Dixon, Robert (2002) ''Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development''. .Koch, Harold (2004), ''A methodological history of Australian linguistic classification''.

Grammar

One of the distinguishing features of the language is that every word ends with a

vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...

sound. For instance, the root word ŋamun (breast) common in other languages of the region has been incorporated in Yirandali as "ŋamuna".

References

Maric languages Extinct languages of Queensland {{ia-lang-stub