User:Clepes/sandbox

Ngarinyin
Region	Western Australia
Native speakers	56 Ungarinyin (2006 census) plus 2 Andajin (2009)
Language family	Worrorran Ngarinyin
Dialects	Ungarinjin Guwidj (Orla) Waladja Ngarnawu Andadjin Munumburru Wolyamidi Waladjangarri
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Either: ung – Ngarinyin ajn – Andajin
Glottolog	ngar1284
AIATSIS	K18 Ungarinyin, K23 Andajin, K25 Munumburu, K26 Wolyamidi

The Ngarinyin language (Ungarinjin), or Eastern Worrorran, is a moribund Australian Aboriginal language of Western Australia. With less than one hundred living speakers, Ngarinyin is considered a critically endangered language, though there are efforts being made to documenting speech and grammar structures before it becomes extinct, including the specifics on the terms of the kinship system of the language.

Classification

Ngarinyin is one of the Worrorran languages. It is a dialect cluster, and may be considered more than a single language; Bowern (2011) lists Ngarinyin, Andajin, and Worla.

Usage

As a nearly extinct language, Ngarinyin is found only within the local region of Northern Kimberley, Australia, and other local languages are found in the surrounding region instead due to the small population of Ngarinyin speakers, including the Worrorran languages of Wunambal and Worora. Ngarinyin is found at the center of the region, and the other aboriginal languages in the area face similar levels of endangerment. Ngarinyin was previously one of the most prevalent of the aboriginal languages in Northern Kimberley, but it has since become a language known only by a small number of the elderly. Kriol is often used by younger generations instead of Ngarinyin, though some knowledge of the language is still retained by these people.

Kinship Terms

Ngarinyin places great emphasis on the classification of family members and is similar to the neighboring aboriginal languages of Worora and Wunambal to the point of being virtually identical, though it is still considered unusual among those that study kinship systems of aboriginal languges. One of the most noticeable features of this system is the use of identical terms given to kin usually separated by generation level. For instance, the titles wife's brother, wife's father and wife's father's father in English all share the same title of waiingi in Ngarinyin.

Phonology

Vowels

	Front	Back
High	i iː	u uː
Mid	e	o
Low	a aː

Consonants

	Peripheral		Laminal	Apical
	Bilabial	Velar	Palatal	Alveolar	Retroflex
Stop	p	k	c	t	ʈ
Nasal	m	ŋ	ɲ	n	ɳ
Lateral			ʎ	l	ɭ
Rhotic				r	ɻ
Semivowel	w		j

References

• Capell, A. (1972). The Languages of the Northern Kimberley, W. A.: Some Structural Principles. Oceania, 43(1), 54-65. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.proxy.libraries.rutgers.edu/stable/40330037
• Coate, H. H. J.; Elkin, A. P. (1974). Ngarinjin-English Dictionary. Sydney: Oceania Linguistic Monographs.
• Coate, H. H. J.; Oates, Lynette (1970). A Grammar of Ngarinjin. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.
• Dixon, R. M. W. (2002). Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• McConvell, P., Keen, I., & Henderey, R. (2013). 7. The Evolution of Yolngu and Ngarinyin Kinship Terminologies. In, Kinship Systems: Change and Reconstruction (132). University of Utah Press.
• Rumsey, A. (1982). An intra-sentence grammar of Ungarinjin, north-western Australia. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
• Scheffler, H. (1984). Meaning and Use in Ngarinyin Kin Classification. Oceania, 54(4), 310-322. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.proxy.libraries.rutgers.edu/stable/40330770