Wambaya language

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]

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)
Language family	Mirndi Ngurlun Wambaya
Dialects	Wambaya Gudanji Binbinka
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Either: wmb – Wambaya nji – Gudanji
Glottolog	wamb1258
AIATSIS[2]	C19 Wambaya, C26 Gurdanji, N138 Binbinga
ELP	Wambaya
	Binbinka[3]

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]