Wambaya
McArthur River
Native toAustralia
RegionBarkly Tableland, Northern Territory
EthnicityWambaya, Gudanji, Binbinga
Native speakers
43 (2021 census)[1]
(24 Wambaya; 19 Gudanji)
Dialects
  • Wambaya
  • Gudanji
  • Binbinka
Language codes
ISO 639-3Either:
wmb – Wambaya
nji – Gudanji
Glottologwamb1258
AIATSIS[2]C19 Wambaya, C26 Gurdanji, N138 Binbinga
ELPWambaya
 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]

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 b ɡ ɟ d ɖ
Nasal m ŋ ɲ n ɳ
Lateral ʎ l ɭ
Rhotic ɾ ~ r ɻ
Approximant w j
  • Sounds /ɡ, ŋ/ are heard as palatalized [ɡʲ, ŋʲ] when before front vowels.
  • /ɾ/ is heard as a trill [r] when in pre-consonantal position.

Vowels

Front Back
High ɪ, iː ʊ, uː
Low a, aː
  • /a/ can be heard as [æ] when after palatal sounds /ɟ, ɲ/ and before /j/.
  • /ɪ/ is heard as [i] when before /j/.[10]

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".
  8. ↑ "2016 Census: Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Peoples QuickStats - Tennant Creek". www.censusdata.abs.gov.au. Retrieved 9 May 2018.
  9. ↑ Nordlinger, Rachel (1998). A Grammar of Wambaya, Northern Territory (Australia) (PDF). Pacific Linguistics. p. 2–3.
  10. ↑ Nordlinger, Rachel (1998). A Grammar Of Wambaya, Northern Territory (Australia). Pacific Linguistics. pp. 17–22.


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