Contents

Worrorra language

Worrorra
Worrorran languages (purple), among other non-Pama-Nyungan languages (grey)
Region	Western Australia
Ethnicity	Worrorra, Unggumi, Yawijibaya, Unggarranggu, Umiida
Native speakers	8 (2021 census)[1]
Language family	Wororan (Western) Worrorra
Dialects	Worrorra Unggumi Yawidjibara Windjarumi Unggarrangu Umiida[2]
Signed forms	Worora Kinship Sign Language
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Variously: wro – Worrorra xgu – Unggumi xud – Umiida xun – Unggarranggu jbw – Yawijibaya
Glottolog	west2435
AIATSIS[3]	K17 Worrorra, K14 Unggumi, K49 Umiida, K55 Unggarrangu, K53 Yawijibaya
ELP	Worrorra
Worrorran languages

Worrorra, also written Worora and other variants, and also known as Western Worrorran, is a moribund Australian Aboriginal language of northern Western Australia. It encompasses a number of dialects, which are spoken by a group of people known as the Worrorra people.

It is one of a group of Worrorran languages, the other two being Wunambal and Ngarinyin.

Dialects of (western) Worrorra[edit]

Worrorra is a dialect cluster; Bowern (2011) recognises five languages: Worrorra proper, Unggumi, Yawijibaya, Unggarranggu, and Umiida.^[4] McGregor and Rumsey (2009) include the above dialects and also include Winyjarrumi (Winjarumi), describing Worrorra as a non-Pama-Nyungan language of the Worrorran group of languages known properly as western Worrorran.^[3]

Umiida, Unggarrangu, Unggumi, and Yawijibaya peoples are described in separate articles.

An alleged Maialnga language was a reported clan name of Worrorra proper that could not be confirmed with speakers.^[5]

Notable people[edit]

Elkin Umbagai was a translator between English and Worrorra.^[6]

Phonology[edit]

• A nasal occurring before a stop consonant, is then realised as a prenasalized voiced stop sound (ex. [ŋɡ]).
• /r/ can be heard as a trill or a flap, and is typically only voiced when preceding a sonorant, voiced phoneme, or lateral consonant. Elsewhere, it is voiceless as [r̥], or can be heard in free variation.
• /j/ can also be heard as a fricative sound [ç] in word-initial positions.

• Long vowel sounds are noted as follows: /iː, ɛː, uː, ɔː, ɑː/.
• In between consonant clusters, an epenthetic vowel sound [ʉ̆] ~ [ɨ̆] occurs when breaking them up. Sometimes it can also be heard as a central vowel sound [ɨ].^[8]

Sign language[edit]

The Worora have (or at one point had) a signed form of their language, used for speaking to kin in certain taboo relationships,^[9] but it is not clear from records that it was particularly well developed compared to other Australian Aboriginal sign languages.^[10]

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• Clendon, Mark (2014). Worrorra: A language of the north-west Kimberley coast. University of Adelaide. doi:10.20851/worrorra. hdl:2440/84235. ISBN 978-1-922064-59-2.