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
- ^ Australian Bureau of Statistics (2021). "Cultural diversity: Census". Retrieved 13 October 2022.
- ^ C19 Wambaya at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (see the info box for additional links)
- ^ Endangered Languages Project data for Binbinka.
- ^ a b Nordlinger, Rachel. (1998), A Grammar Of Wambaya, Northern Territory (Australia), p. 1.
- ^ Ethnologue
- ^ Bender, Emily M. (2008), Evaluating a Crosslinguistic Grammar Resource: A Case Study of Wambaya, p. 2
- ^ "2011 Census QuickStats: Tennant Creek".
- ^ "2016 Census: Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Peoples QuickStats - Tennant Creek". www.censusdata.abs.gov.au. Retrieved 9 May 2018.
- ^ Nordlinger, Rachel (1998). A Grammar of Wambaya, Northern Territory (Australia) (PDF). Pacific Linguistics. pp. 2–3.
- ^ Nordlinger, Rachel (1998). A Grammar Of Wambaya, Northern Territory (Australia). Pacific Linguistics. pp. 17–22.
External links
- Bibliography of Binbinga people and language resources, at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
- Bibliography of Gudanji people and language resources, at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies