Worrorra language

Worrorra is a dialect cluster; Bowern (2011) recognises five languages: Worrorra proper, Unggumi, Yawijibaya, Unggarranggu, and Umiida.Bowern, Claire. 2011. "[http://anggarrgoon.wordpress.com/2011/12/23/how-many-languages-were-spoken-in-australia/ How Many Languages Were Spoken in Australia?] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120815230456/http://anggarrgoon.wordpress.com/2011/12/23/how-many-languages-were-spoken-in-australia/ |date=2012-08-15 }}", Anggarrgoon: Australian languages on the web, December 23, 2011 ([http://pamanyungan.sites.yale.edu/master-list-australian-languages-v12 corrected] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120703071544/http://pamanyungan.sites.yale.edu/master-list-australian-languages-v12 |date=2012-07-03 }} February 6, 2012) 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.

An alleged Maialnga language was a reported clan name of Worrorra proper that could not be confirmed with speakers.{{Citation|title=Aboriginal tribes of Australia : their terrain, environmental controls, distribution, limits, and proper names|publication-date=1974|author1=Tindale, Norman B. (Norman Barnett)|author2=Jones, Rhys|year=1974|publisher=University of California Press ; Canberra : Australian National University Press|isbn=978-0-520-02005-4}}

Elkin Umbagai was a translator between English and Worrorra.{{cite web | url=http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/umbagai-elkin-11899 | title=Umbagai, Elkin (1921–1980) | publisher=Australian Dictionary of Biography | access-date=4 November 2013 | author=Valda J. Blundell and Mary Anne Jebb}}

• 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 {{IPAblink|r̥}}, or can be heard in free variation.
• /j/ can also be heard as a fricative sound {{IPAblink|ç}} in word-initial positions.

• Long vowel sounds are noted as follows: /iː, ɛː, uː, ɔː, ɑː/.
• In between consonant clusters, an epenthetic vowel sound {{IPAblink|ʉ̆}} ~ {{IPAblink|ɨ̆}} occurs when breaking them up. Sometimes it can also be heard as a central vowel sound {{IPAblink|ɨ}}.

The Worora have (or at one point had) a signed form of their language, used for speaking to kin in certain taboo relationships,Love, J.R.B. (1941). Worora kinship gestures, Reprinted in Aboriginal sign languages of the Americas and Australia. New York: Plenum Press, 1978, vol. 2, pp. 403–405. but it is not clear from records that it was particularly well developed compared to other Australian Aboriginal sign languages.Kendon, A. (1988) Sign Languages of Aboriginal Australia: Cultural, Semiotic and Communicative Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite book|author=Clendon, Mark|date=2014|url=https://doi.org/10.20851/worrorra|title=Worrorra: A language of the north-west Kimberley coast|isbn= 978-1-922064-59-2|publisher=University of Adelaide|doi=10.20851/worrorra|hdl=2440/84235}}

{{Australian Aboriginal languages}}

Category:Worrorran languages

Category:Endangered indigenous Australian languages in Western Australia