Worrorra language

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.

Worrorra
Western Worroran
Native to	Australia
Region	Western Australia
Ethnicity	Worrorra, Unggumi, Yawijibaya, Unggarranggu, Umiida, ?Maialnga
Native speakers	8 (2021 census)[1]
Language family	Wororan (Western) Worrorra
Dialects	Worrorra Unggumi Yawidjibara Windjarumi Unggarrangu Umiida[2] Maialnga?
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
Worrorran languages (purple), among other non-Pama-Nyungan languages (grey)

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

Dialects

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]

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

Notable people

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

Phonology

Worrorra consonant phonemes^[7][8]

	Bilabial	Inter- dental	Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar
Stop	p	t̪	t	ʈ	c	k
Nasal	m	n̪	n	ɳ	ɲ	ŋ
Rhotic			ɾ~r
Lateral			l	ɭ	ʎ
Approximant	w			ɻ	j

• 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.

Worrorra vowel inventory^[7]

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
Mid	e		o
Low		a

• 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]

Phoneme	Allophones[8]
/i/	[i], [ɪ]
/a/	[a], [ɒ], [æ], [ɛ̞], [ɑ], [ɐ]
/u/	[u], [y], [ʊ]
/iː/	[iː], [ɪː]
/ɛː/	[eɪ], [ɛː] ~ [eː]
/ɑː/	[ɑˑɪ], [ɑ]
/ɔː/	[oʊ], [ɔː] ~ [ɒː]
/uː/	[uː], [ʊː]

Sign language

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]