Wilson River language

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.{{cite Australian Dictionary of Biography | year=1996 |id=A140009b| title= Dixon, Lorna Rose (1917? - 1976) | access-date=2007-07-23 | author=Ritchie, John; Cunneen, Christopher }} It appears to have gone extinct by 2005.

Dixon (2002) considers Punthamara to be a dialect of Wangkumara, Bowern (2001) as very close. Bowern says that Ngandangara also appears to have been "very close", although data is too poor for a proper classification.{{cite book|author=Bowern, Claire|year=2001|url=https://yale.academia.edu/ClaireBowern/Papers/1002425/Karnic_classification_revisited|chapter=Karnic classification revisited|editor=J Simpson|title=Forty years on|pages=245–260|publisher=Canberra Pacific Linguistics|archive-url=https://archive.today/20120805212925/http://yale.academia.edu/ClaireBowern/Papers/1002425/Karnic_classification_revisited|archive-date=2012-08-05|url-status=live|display-editors=etal}} Karenggapa is either a dialect or an alternative name.{{AIATSIS|L15|Karenggapa}} (McDonald & Wurm 1979) note that Wilson River Galali, what they call "Waŋkumara (Gaḷali)", is very close to modern Waŋkumara and Bundamara.

Breen (1967) states that the (Karnic) 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 (the language of the Thereila) may have belonged as well. At least, the Yandruwandha term Palpakunu covered it as well as the other Wilson River dialects.

A language labelled "Wonkomarra" in Myles (1886) is a different language from modern Wangkumara, and may be a variety of Kalali.

Wangkumara is notable for being a language with a tripartite verbal alignment.{{citation needed|date=July 2012}} Wurm's Wankamara (Galali) is entirely suffixing and morphologically fairly simple having the following word classes: nominal (noun and pronoun), verb, particle, and interjection. The word order is random and free. The phonemes consist of three vowels and 26 consonants.

• /d̪/ can have an allophone of [ð] when after /l̪/.
• Sounds /b, ɟ, ɡ/ can be lenited as fricatives [β, ʒ, ɣ] when in intervocalic positions or after lateral sounds.{{Cite book |last=McDonald |first=M. |title=Basic Materials in Waŋkumara (Gaḷali): Grammar, Sentences and Vocabulary |last2=Wurm |first2=S. A. |publisher=Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University |year=1979}}

The vowel sounds are a three-vowel system. Vowel length is not evenly distributed, but is mostly heard phonetically when preceding voiced consonants. Allophones may also occur.

{{reflist|1}}

• [http://www.latrobe.edu.au/linguistics/LaTrobePapersinLinguistics/Vol%2002/04Austin.pdf Verb compounding in central Australian languages.]
• [http://aiatsis.gov.au/sites/default/files/docs/collections/language_bibs/bundhamara.pdf Bibliography of Bundhamara people and language resources], at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies

{{Pama–Nyungan languages|Central}}

Category:Karnic languages

Category:Extinct languages of Queensland

Category:Critically endangered languages