Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jul 19, 2026

Yirram languages

The Yirram or Jaminjungan languages, also known as Western Mirndi, are a branch of the Mirndi languages spoken around the Victoria River in the Northern Territory of Australia. The name of these languages is derived from the dual clitic which is "yirram" in each of the languages.

Last revised
Jul 19, 2026
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≈ 1 min
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Source
Wikipedia ↗
Yirram
Djamindjungan
Geographic
distribution		Victoria River, Australia
Linguistic classificationMirndi
  • Yirram
Subdivisions
Language codes
Glottologdjam1254
  Yirram
  Barkly
  other non-Pama–Nyungan families

The Yirram or Jaminjungan languages, also known as Western Mirndi, are a branch of the Mirndi languages spoken around the Victoria River in the Northern Territory of Australia. The name of these languages is derived from the dual clitic which is "yirram" in each of the languages.1

It consists of two languages, the Nungali language and the Jaminjung language. A third language has been proposed, Ngaliwurru, but it is often thought to be merely a dialect of the Jaminjung language.2

References

References

  1. Schultze-Berndt, Eva F. (2000), Simple and Complex Verbs in Jaminjung – A Study of event categorisation in an Australian language, p. 7
  2. Green, Ian (1995). "The death of 'prefixing': contact induced typological change in northern Australia". Linguistics.berkeley.edu/BLS/ Berkeley Linguistics Society. 21: 414–425. doi:10.3765/bls.v21i1.1419.