Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jun 24, 2026

Ngurlun languages

The Ngurlun languages, also known as Eastern Mirndi, are a branch of the Mirndi languages spoken around in the Barkly Tableland of Northern Territory, Australia. The branch consists of two to four languages, depending on what is considered a dialect: Ngarnka, Wambaya, and often Binbinka and Gurdanji.

Last revised
Jun 24, 2026
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≈ 1 min
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Wikipedia ↗
Ngurlun
West Barkly (reduced)
Geographic
distribution		Barkly Tableland, Australia
Linguistic classificationMirndi
  • Ngurlun
Subdivisions
Language codes
Glottologguda1245
  Yirram
  Barkly
  other non-Pama–Nyungan families

The Ngurlun languages, also known as Eastern Mirndi, are a branch of the Mirndi languages spoken around in the Barkly Tableland of Northern Territory, Australia. The branch consists of two to four languages, depending on what is considered a dialect: Ngarnka, Wambaya, and often Binbinka and Gurdanji.1

The group was formerly thought to be most closely related to the Jingulu language, with this larger group called West Barkly or simply Barkly,2 but the connection is no longer thought to be genealogical.1

References

References

  1. Harvey, Mark David (2008). Proto Mirndi: A discontinuous language family in Northern Australia. PL 593. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. p. 3. ISBN 978-0-85883-588-7.
  2. Green, Ian (1995). "The death of 'prefixing': contact induced typological change in northern Australia". Berkeley Linguistics Society. 21: 414–425.