| Ngiyampaa/Ngiyambaa | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Australia |
| Region | New South Wales |
| Ethnicity | Ngiyambaa (Wangaaypuwan,Wayilwan) |
Native speakers | 11-50 (2018-2019)[1] |
Pama–Nyungan
| |
| Dialects |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | wyb |
| Glottolog | wang1291 |
| AIATSIS[1] | D22 Ngiyampaa / Ngempa,D20 Wayilwan,D18 Wangaaypuwan |
| ELP | Ngiyambaa |
 Ngiyambaa is classified as Critically Endangered by theUNESCOAtlas of the World's Languages in Danger | |
TheNgiyampaa language, also speltNgiyambaa,Ngempa,Ngemba and other variants, is aPama–Nyungan language of theWiradhuric subgroup. It was the traditional language of theWangaaypuwan andWayilwan peoples ofNew South Wales.
Ngiyampaa was the traditional language of the Wangaaypuwan and Wayilwan peoples ofNew South Wales, Australia, but is nowmoribund.
According to Tamsin Donaldson (1980) there are two dialects of Ngiyampaa: Wangaaybuwan, spoken by the people in the south, and Wayil or Wayilwan, spoken by people in the north. They have very similar grammars.[2]
Donaldson records that by the 1970s there were only about ten people fluent in Wangaaypuwan, and only a couple of Wayilwan speakers left.[citation needed] In 2018-2019, it was estimated by one source that there were 11-50 speakers of the Ngiyambaa language.[3]
Ngiyambaa (meaning language), or Ngiyambaambuwali, was also used by theWangaaypuwan andWayilwan to describe themselves, whilst 'Wangaaypuwan' and 'Wayilwan' (meaning 'With Wangaay/Wayil' (for 'no') were used to distinguish both the language and the speakers from others who did not havewangaay orwayil forno.
Other names for Ngiyambaa are: Giamba, Narran, Noongaburrah, Ngampah, Ngemba, Ngeumba, Ngiamba, Ngjamba, Ngiyampaa and Ngumbarr; Wangaibon is also called Wangaaybuwan and Wongaibon, and Weilwan is also called Wailwan, Wayilwan, or Wailwun.
Their language consisted of varieties ofNgiyampaa,[a][4] which was composed of two dialects, Ngiyampaa Wangaaypuwan and Ngiyambaa Wayilwan.[5][6][7] TheWangaaypuwan (withwangaay) people are so called because they usewangaay to say "no", as opposed to the Ngiyampaa in the Macquarie Marshes and towardsWalgett, who were historically defined separately by colonial ethnographers asWayilwan, so-called because their word for "no" waswayil.[8][6] The distinction between Ngiyampaa, Wangaaypuwan, and Wayilwan traditionally drawn, and sanctioned by the classification ofNorman Tindale, may rest upon a flawed assumption of marked "tribal" differences based on Ngiyampaa linguistic discriminations between internal groups or clans whose word for "no" varied.[9]
| Peripheral | Laminal | Apical | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labial | Velar | Dental | Palatal | Alveolar | Retroflex | |
| Plosive | b⟨b/p⟩ | ɡ⟨g/k⟩ | d̪⟨dh/th⟩ | ɟ⟨dy/ty⟩ | d⟨d/t⟩ | |
| Nasal | m⟨m⟩ | ŋ⟨ng⟩ | n̪⟨nh⟩ | ɲ⟨ny⟩ | n⟨n⟩ | |
| Lateral | l⟨l⟩ | |||||
| Rhotic | r⟨rr⟩ | |||||
| Approximant | w⟨w⟩ | j⟨y⟩ | ɻ⟨r⟩ | |||
Wangaaypuwan orthography uses p, t, k while Wayilwan uses b, d, g.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i⟨i⟩iː⟨ii⟩ | u⟨u⟩uː⟨uu⟩ | |
| Open | a⟨a⟩aː⟨aa⟩ |
| Phonemes | Allophones |
|---|---|
| /i/, /iː/ | [i],[ɪ],[iː],[ɪː] |
| /a/ | [ä],[ə],[ʌ],[e],[ɛ],[o],[ɔ] |
| /u/, /uː/ | [u],[ʊ],[o],[uː],[ʊː],[oː] |
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