Wilson River language


The Wilson River language is an Australian Aboriginal language of the Karnic family. It was spoken by several peoples along the Wilson River in Queensland. Of these, the Wangkumara and Galali may have migrated from the Bulloo River and abandoned their language when they arrived.

Speakers

In 1981, the language was still spoken by four members of the Wangkumara community around Cooper Creek, the Thomson River, and the Warry Warry Creek, the town of Eromanga and the Nuccundra. It appears to have gone extinct by 2005.

Varieties

Dixon considers Punthamara to be a dialect of Wangkumara, Bowern as very close. Bowern says that Ngandangara also appears to have been "very close", although data is too poor for a proper classification. Karenggapa is either a dialect or an alternative name. note that Wilson River Galali, what they call "Waŋkumara ", is very close to modern Waŋkumara and Bundamara.
Breen states that the speech of the groups along the Wilson River are essentially identical. These include Bundhamara, Gungadudji, 'Modern' Wanggumara and Ngandangura. For instance, that Gungadidji is 'almost identical to Punthamara and modern Wangkumara'. Nonetheless, these language varieties have been assigned individual ISO codes.
Mambangura may have belonged as well. At least, the Yandruwandha term Palpakunu covered it as well as the other Wilson River dialects.
A language labeled "Wonkomarra" in Myles is a different language from modern Wangkumara, and may be a variety of Kalali.

Features

Wangkumara is notable for being a language with a tripartite verbal alignment. Wurm's Wankamara is entirely suffixing and morphologically fairly simple having the following word classes: nominal, verb, particle, and interjection. The word order is random and free. The phonemes consist of three vowels and 26 consonants.