| Wambaya | |
|---|---|
| McArthur River | |
| Native to | Australia |
| Region | Barkly Tableland, Northern Territory |
| Ethnicity | Wambaya, Gudanji, Binbinga |
Native speakers | 43 (2021 census)[1] (24 Wambaya; 19 Gudanji) |
| |
| Dialects |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Either:wmb – Wambayanji – Gudanji |
| Glottolog | wamb1258 |
| AIATSIS[2] | C19 Wambaya, C26 Gurdanji, N138 Binbinga |
| ELP | Wambaya |
| 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]
| 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 | |||
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| High | ɪ, iː | ʊ, uː |
| Low | a, aː | |
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