Marra, sometimes formerly speltMara, is anAustralian Aboriginal language, traditionally spoken on an area of theGulf of Carpentaria coast in the Northern Territory around theRoper,Towns andLimmen Bight Rivers. Marra is now anendangered language. The most recent survey was in 1991; at that time, there were only 15 speakers, all elderly. Most Marra people now speakKriol as their main language.^[3] The remaining elderly Marra speakers live in the Aboriginal communities ofNgukurr,Numbulwar,Borroloola andMinyerri.

Marra is a prefixing language with three noun classes (masculine, feminine, and neuter) and a singular-plural-dual distinction. It is characterized by an intricate aspectual system, elaboratekin terms, no definite structure forrelative clause construction, and a complexdemonstrative system. Unlike many languages in the area, it has littleavoidance language and no difference in the speech of male and female speakers.

Marra is a member of theArnhem family, the second-largest Australian language family afterPama–Nyungan.^[4] The Marra people refer to themselves asMarranbala orMarra, and their language asMarra. In addition to Warndarrang, which was spoken to the north of Marra along theRoper River, Marra was also in contact withAlawa (spoken inland, to the west),Binbinga andWilangarra (West Barkly languages to the south), andYanyuwa (a Pama–Nyungan language to the southeast).^[5]

TheMarra people were traditionally divided into three clans that lived along the Limmen Bight River inArnhem Land (Northern Territory,Australia):burdal,murrungun, andmambali. In the 1970s, when the first serious fieldwork was being done on Marra, themambali clan was extinct, though a family with the surname Riley of theburdal clan and a man by the name of Anday of themurrungun clan were able to provide the linguistJeffrey Heath with cultural and linguistic information.^[5]

The three clans, together with the Warndarrang-speakingguyal group, made up a set of fourpatrilinealsemimoieties, each of which had their own set of songs, myths, and rituals. Each semimoiety was also associated with atotem (olive python or fork-tailed catfish formambali,goanna forguyal,black-headed python orantilopine kangaroo forburdal, andking brown snake formurrungun) and had responsibilities for that totem.^[6] Note that Warndarang people use the same system of semimoieties, under the namesmambali,murrungun,wurdal, andguyal (wuyal).^[7]

In the years 1973–1975 and 1976–1977, the linguist Jeffrey Heath worked with some of the surviving speakers of Marra to create a sizeable grammar and dictionary. With the help of four principal informants – Mack Riley, Tom Riley, Johnnie (who was Warndarrang but spoke Marra andNunggubuyu for most of his life), and Anday – Heath was able to collect grammar and vocabulary information as well as extensive texts on clan songs and totem rituals.

(All grammatical information from Heath 1981^[5] unless otherwise noted.)

Marra has a consonant inventory nearly identical to those of Warndarrang and Alawa. There are two additional phonemes: theinterdental/n̪/ and/l̪/ which occur only in a few flora-fauna terms, and are likelyloanwords from eitherNunggubuyu orYanyuwa, both of which languages use these phonemes frequently.

With the interdentals excepted, the Marra consonants consist of astop and anasal in each of fiveplaces of articulation with twolaterals, tworhotics, and twosemivowels.

A standard orthography has been developed over several years of work with Diwurruwurru-Jaru Aboriginal Corporation (also known as the Katherine Regional Aboriginal Language Centre).^[8] The standard orthography is used throughout this article, but the table below also gives the equivalentIPA symbols in brackets where appropriate. The interdental sounds have not been included in the table as they are only found in loanwords.

It is not clear if the vibrant is a trill or a tap.

Marra has three main vowels:

The vowel/e/ is found in exactly two words,renburr, "paper wasp", andreywuy, "sandfly", and the vowel/o/ in one word,yo!, a common interjection meaning "yes!" found throughout the area, including in the local English-based creole.

There is no contrast in Marravowel length, though the first vowel of a two-syllable word is often lengthened, as are the word-final vowels in a particular style of story-telling.

Words cannot begin with a vowel, with the exception of a handful of stems beginning with /a/.

Vowels clusters do not occur; all but one of adjacent underlying vowels are deleted. The only permitted word-initialconsonant clusters arehomorganic (involving the same place of articulation) nasal + stop combinations, particularlymb orngg. The nominative prefixn-, when added to a stem beginning with a cluster, is usually pronounced with the preceding syllable, and then- with combined with /r/ or /n/ results in the addition of the meaningless particle–nga- between the prefix and the stem.

Word-final consonant clusters can only take the formliquid (lateral or rhotic) plus noncoronal (labial, laminoalveolar, or velar) stop or nasal. Within a word, triple clusters are limited to a liquid and a homorganic nasal + stop cluster or to a liquid, a noncoronal, and any other consonant. Examples of this includegurralgmaninja, "kookaburra", andbulnggan, "extinguished fire". Many double-consonant clusters can occur.

In segments that are repeated in a word – either by reduplication or by chance morphology – the second stop is oftenlenited into a semivowel or lost altogether. /j/ and /ʈ/ will become /y/, /b/ will become /w/, and /g/ will either become /w/ or Ø. This lenition can optionally occur at the beginning of a small number of nouns when the stem is preceded by a prefix ending in a vowel.

There are also several instances of word-initial lenition of /g/ or /b/ to /w/, in cardinal directions, kin terms, and a few other isolated examples. At the beginning of verb stems, the underlying combinationrrn will have the surface form of n, whereas an n followed by the phonemes l, rl, rr, r, n, or ny in any other context results in the deletion of the initial n.

Stops are frequentlynasalized (pronounced as the nasal at the stop's place of articulation) when followed by a nasal or any other non-stop. Examples of this include the reduplicatedman-mad "to mix a lot" frommad "to mix" or the noun + case ending ofnga-lurlbam-nyu fromlurlbab "juvenile euro (Macropus robustus)".

In Marra, there is no clear grammatical distinction betweennouns,adjectives, andadverbs; they are all treated the same morphologically. Personal and demonstrative pronouns, however, each form a distinctive word class, and all can be clearly distinguished from verb complexes.

Noun phrases typically consist of an article, a noun, and the possibilities foradjuncts, which often but not always follow the main noun.

Nouns are usually preceded by an article, which marks case, gender, and number. The nominative articles, for instance, are as follows:

In additional to the articles, each noun is marked with a prefix containing information about case (nominative or non-nominative), gender (masculine, feminine, or neuter), and number (singular, plural,dual), as follows:

Almost all non-human singular nouns are marked as masculine, though some specifically-femalemarsupial terms can be marked as feminine. The neuter case is reserved for body parts, topographic terms, abstract conceptions, and the wordgurnarru, "sun".

Nouns in Marra are marked by suffixes for one of six cases:

1. nominative
2. ergative/instrumental/genitive
3. allative/locative
4. ablative
5. pergressive
6. purposive

The nominative (-ø) is used forintransitive subjects ortransitive objects – such a case is usually called the "absolutive", though some languages to the south of Marra have an absolutive case that is distinct from this usage.

The ergative or instrumental case (also–ø, though takes the non-nominative prefix) is used to mark the subject of a transitive verb (the usual meaning of "ergative") or to mark the object used to complete the action of the verb (the usual meaning of "instrumental"). This case, along with a genitive pronoun, is also used to mark possession (see below).

The allative/locative case (-yurr) signals the idea of direction of motion ("to X"), static location ("in/on/at X"), or motional location ("by/through X"). Though this meaning is within the domain of the pergressive case in many related languages, the Marra pergressive (-ya, "through" or "along") is restricted to body-part or topographic terms.

The ablative case is used to specify the origin of motion. It takes the form–yani for most nouns but-yana for place names.

Lastly, the purposive–ni indicates the goal of the verb, as in the sentencebu-ngarlini na-yija-ni, "I set fires for game" (i.e., in order to hunt or obtain game), where the verbbu-ngarlini is intransitive and thusyija, "game" takes the purposive and not the nominative.

Possession is typically marked by a genitive pronoun, though if the possessor noun (in the ergative/instrumental case) is present the pronoun is sometimes omitted. For example,n-nga-radburr n-jawurru means "his camp" with the third person singular genitive pronounjawurru, and eithernariyi-marr n-nga-radburr n-jawurru ornariyi-marr n-nga-radburr can mean "the man's camp."

Marra has five basic numerals, one through five:

The numerals six through ten are expressed by combining "five" with another number, e.g.,mani n-murrji wurruja wurruja for "nine". There are also more general quantifiers such asjari andmijimbangu, "many";dangulirrnya, "big group" (non-human);garnyirrimba, "big group" (human); andmurrgu, "a few".

Like many Australian languages, Marra has a process known asreduplication, where some or all of a stem is repeated. With human nouns, reduplication takes the meaning of three or more of that noun, such asjawu-yawulba, "three or more old people" fromjawulba, "old person", and a few topographic nouns can be reduplicated to mean the collective plural, as inlurlga-lurlga, "islands".

With both human and non-human nouns, reduplication along with the pergressive case suffix can create the meaning "having X" or "having lots of X", as ingirri-girriya-ya, "having a woman" (being a married man) fromgirriya, "woman".

A few verb stems also display partial reduplication to indicate a repeated action, as inda-dad-gujujunyi, "he repeatedly tied it or them up" as opposed todad-gujujunyi, "he was tying it or them up".

In addition to the pronoun markers on nouns (see above) and verbs (see below), Marra also has independentpersonal pronouns. Unlike other nouns, pronouns do not show a nominative/ergative distinction but instead use the nominative form to mark all subjects as well as the direct object of a transitive verb. Because these pronouns are marked within the verb clause, their inclusion is often optional and can be used to highlight a particular point in what is known as the "emphatic" case.

Personal pronouns have paradigms in seven cases –nominative, emphatic,genitive,ablative,oblique stem,allative/locative, and purposive – for each of first person (singular,exclusive dual,inclusive dual,exclusive plural, andinclusive plural), second person (singular, dual, and plural), and third person (masculine singular, feminine singular, neuter singular, dual, and plural).

There are five categories for demonstrative pronouns: proximate, localized immediate, unlocalized immediate, distant, and anaphoric. With the proximate stems, there are separate forms forpredicative (in the "predicate" of the sentence, or the part that modifies the subject) or nonpredicative nouns.

Proximate refers to the area around the speaker, the equivalent of "here". The immediate refers to the area around the person being addressed or to the area approximately two meters away from the speaker. The localized immediate specifies the location, whereas the unlocalized immediate, which is rarer, is more general.

The distant category refers to anything outside of the immediate, either visible to the speaker or invisible. The anaphoric category is anything within the distant category that has previously been referred to, indicating that the location is not new to the discourse.

These pronouns have separate forms for masculine singular, feminine singular, neuter, dual, and plural, each of which has a nominative and non-nominative form. They are generally formed by the prefixesni-MSG,ngi-FSG,n-gi-NEUT,wirr- orwarra-DU, andwil- orwila-PL for the nominative orna-MSG,ya-FSG,nya-NEUT,wirri-DU, andwili-PL for the non-nominative and the suffixes-nya (non-predicative proximate),-n-garra (predicative proximate),-ya (unlocalized immediate),-yarra (localized immediate),-nanya or-ninya (distant), and-nangga or-ningga (anaphoric), though there are irregular forms for some combinations.

From these, one can form demonstrative adverbs, in the locative or allative cases. These have the same spatial meaning as the corresponding demonstrative pronouns, but they refer to a general location rather than the location of a specific noun. The allative forms are summarized in the following table:

To make the locative forms, thegi-/ga- in the table above is replaced by the prefixwi-/nya- (proximate),warri-/nyarri- (immediate), orwani-/nyani- (distant or anaphoric), and the suffix-yu(rr) is added.

Like many of the languages of Arnhem Land, Marra'scardinal directions correspond closely with English "north, south, east, west", but have intricate casemorphology.

There are also directional words for "up" and "down" (i.e., upriver, downhill, etc.) that display a similar morphological complexity:

Yes–no questions in Marra are identical to assertions, with a slight intonation difference. There is no tag for these statements (an equivalent to the English "right?" or "aren't you?"), though the local English-based creole's question markerngi occasionally appears in modern Marra speech.

Other types of interrogative clauses involve words that can also take an indefinite form, as inngani, which can mean "who?", "someone", or "anyone". If the distinction between interrogative and indefinite is unclear from context, the adverbjabay "maybe" can be added to indicate that the phrase is an assertion and not a question.

These interrogative words take a prefix to mark number and gender – masculine singular is the default, though any additional presupposed information can be included in the marking. Case suffixes can also be marked. These particles are typically clause-initial and then followed by the assertion whose details are being elicited. For instance,na-nginjani-ni wu-rlini? literally means "for what? he went" with the sense of "why did he go?" andnginjani gana rag-ninyi? means "what? you killed it" or "what did you kill?".

A basic verb complex in Marra consists of a pronominal prefix, aninflectable verb-stem, and suffixes marking tense, aspect, and mood. Often, however, there is an uninflectable "main verb" that specifies the meaning of the verb that is then followed by the inflectable "auxiliary verb". Some verbs in Marra can only be main verbs or auxiliary verbs, though many can serve in both positions.

The morphemes of the verb are ordered in the complex as follows:

1. Negative (prefixgu- or preceding wordganagu orŋula)
2. Benefactivema- ormarl-
3. Main verb
4. Centripetalya- ornga-
5. Third person present marker–wa-
6. Pronoun prefix
7. Reduplication of any prior prefixes
8. Durative stem-initial prefix
9. Auxiliary verb
10. Tense, aspect, mood suffix
11. Reflexive/reciprocal suffix-rlana

The benefactive prefix indicates that something was done "for" somebody as, as inma-rang-nan.ganyi, "he killed it for me".Ma- is used when there is a main-auxiliary distinction;marl- is used when there is only one verb in the complex.The centripetal particle is used to indicate motion within the speaker’s frame of reference, with the idea of the motion coming "back" or "This way". It is the only way to distinguish the meaning of verbs "to take" from "to bring" or "to go" from "to come".

Marra has sixteen possible inflectional (tense/aspect/mood) categories:

• Past punctual positive
• Past continuous durative positive
• Past continuous nondurative positive
• Past potential positive
• Past potential negative
• Past negative
• Present negative
• Present positive
• Evitative positive
• Future indefinite positive
• Future punctual positive
• Future continuous durative positive
• Future continuous nondurative positive
• Imperative positive
• Desiderative positive
• Future negative

Marra aspect is split betweencontinuous and punctual (also known as "perfective") actions, with the former divided into durative (happened throughout) and non-durative (happened over time, but not the entire time). The positive/negative division distinguishes things that did, are, or will happen from things that did not, are not, or will not happen, a category termed in the analyses of some neighboring languages as "irrealis".

The "future indefinite" category is quite rare and takes the meaning of "might". The "past potential" refers to something that was just about to happen (but didn't, due to an interruption) or should have happened.

Theevitative category might be translated as "lest" or "or else", indicating that something undesirable might occur if something else is or is not done. For example,nga-nanggu-wa wuninggi rang-ningganjiyi means "give it to me, or else I will hit you". Note that the evitative is normally paired with another clause (as Heath says, it “does not normally stand alone as a simple prediction of impending doom”), usually in theimperative.

The past continuous durative positive, present negative/positive, future indefinite positive, future continuous durative positive, and desiderative positive all take a "durative" morpheme in the verb complex's "durative stem-initial prefix" slot; all other categories are unmarked.

The forms of these suffixes differ by auxiliary verb.

As in Warndarrang and other related languages, a different pronominal prefix is added to the verb for each combination of subject and object. For example, a verb with a second-person singular subject and a first-person exclusive dual object would take the prefixnirrgu- but the person-person exclusive dual subject with a third-person dual object would take the prefixnimbirr-. Within the second-person subject, third-person object paradigm, there are also different pronouns for imperative and non-imperative verbs. There are extremely complicated rules, with many exceptions, for generating these pronouns.When the third person or third person subject/third person object category is marked, the additional prefix–wa- is added to the complex.

Within a noun phrase (NP) or verb complex, word order is almost completely fixed. Articles are followed by demonstrative pronouns are followed by the main noun are followed by adjectives, though genitive pronouns may either follow or precede the main noun. For verbs, the negative particles must immediately precede the verb complex, and within the complex the order of the morphemes is strictly set.

Within the clause, however, the order of the NPs, verb complexes, and adverbs is free. The first element is typically considered to be the most important element. If the first element is not a verb complex, the main verb complex commonly but not always assumes the second position; there appears to be no difference in meaning between those sentences that place the verb complex in the second position and those that do not.

Subordinated clauses are typically marked by a particle or conjunction such asbigana, "because" orwaninggayani, "after that". If, however, the clause can be reduced to a single verb complex, that word is typically nominalized using the suffixes–manjarr or–manggirri and then placed following the head noun.

Marra, like many languages of the area, has taboos preventing the direct interaction of siblings of the opposite sex, beginning around age eight (the age of circumcision in males). The only specific avoidance term in Marra, however, ismarlayarra, used by a sister of a boy who has been circumcised to address or refer to him. In any other situation, the term for a circumcised boy iswarlima.

Marra does not have the complex avoidance speech or male-female language distinction that is found in neighboringYanyula. Men are, however, not supposed to pronounce the names of their mother-in-law (wife’s mother), their wife's mother's brother, or their wife's brother, though these taboos are relaxed as a man ages.

Warndarrang (a language not spoken since 1974) and Marra (a language with only a small number of speakers) are each other’s closest relatives. Together with Alawa (also critically endangered) and Yugul (a language attested by speakers of Warndarrang, Marra, and Alawa but apparently extinct,^[7] these languages form the Marran subgroup of the Gunwinyguan language family. The three documented languages share much vocabulary and have many similar grammatical structures, though there are significant differences, and Warndarrang has been heavily influenced by loanwords from Nunggubuyu and Ngandi to the north.^[7]

All three languages are prefixing, and their verbs consist of either a single inflected stem or an uninflected "main verb" preceding an inflected auxiliary verb.^[9] Such verbal particles are absent in the languages to the north.^[10] The Marran languages also share verbal features such as particle reduplication within the verbal complex indicating a repeated or continuous action (a pattern common in Australian languages), and the negation of verbs is indicated by a particle immediately preceding the verb complex (gu in both Warndarang and Marra butngayi in Alawa).^[9]

Marra has a significantly more complex verbal inflection system than Warndarrang (sixteen different tense/aspect/mood categories in Marra but only eight in Warndarrang and apparently seven in Alawa), an unusually intricate system for Australian languages.^[5] Both languages, however, have conjugation paradigms that are highly verb-specific.

In addition to the similarities in the order of the verb complex, Marra and Warndarrang also both use word-order to focus, or highlight, a particular item within the clause, though otherwise the word-order in Marra is far stricter than that in Warndarrang.

Alawa divides its nouns into two genders (masculine and feminine)^[11] while Marra has three classes (masculine, feminine, and neuter) and Warndarrang six. All three languages distinguish between singular, dual, and plural, with Warndarrang having an additional "paucal" (three to five) class for human nouns. The use of noun cases in Warndarrang and Marra are nearly identical – Marra condenses the allative and locative cases and adds a pergressive case – though the only cognate across the paradigm is the purposive-ni. The case marking system of Alawa is apparently not related.^[11] The demonstratives in Warndarrang and Marra cover approximately the same semantic categories (proximate, immediate, distant, and anaphoric, though Warndarrang adds an intermediate near-distant), though the forms themselves have little similarity. In fact, the Marra demonstratives inflect for case, number, and gender, while Warndarrang demonstratives engage a single basic form. Again, the Alawa demonstrative system is entirely separate, drawing only a single distance distinction ("this" versus "that") but with more nuanced anaphoric distinctions.

The directional terminology between Warndarang and Marra shares many cognates, such asgarrgali (Marra) andarrgarli (Warndarrang) for "west" orguymi (both languages) for "north", though Marra again has a far more intricate and irregular morphological system to distinguish cases in these terms. Marra also has an up/down directional distinction that is absent in Warndarrang. There is no Alawa data for cardinal directions.^[11]

Cultural terminology between the three languages is distinct. Marra has an extremely complex kinship terminology system, including a large number of dyadic terms;^[5] Warndarrang’s system appeared to be much simpler, though the linguist Jeffrey Heath was unable to elicit much kinship information before his informant died.^[7] Alawa has a morphologically-irregular system similar to Marra's, but lacks the dyadic terms and shares few cognates (exceptions includebaba for "older sibling"). A cursory analysis of the flora-fauna terms in the three languages also reveals few cognates. The semi-moieties in Warndarrang and Marra have nearly identical names, however, though the groups were associated with different totems, songs, and rituals.^[6]

• Non-Pama–Nyungan languages
• Grammatical aspect

Wiktionary has a word list atAppendix:North Australian word lists

• Capell, A. (1960). "The Wandarang and other tribal myths of the Yabuduruwa ritual".Oceania.30 (3):206–224.doi:10.1002/j.1834-4461.1960.tb00221.x.JSTOR 40329205.
• Heath, J. (1976). Dixon, R. M. W. (ed.). "North-east Arnhem Land".Grammatical Categories in Australian Languages. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies:735–740.
• Heath, J. (1980).Basic Materials in Warndarang: Grammar, Texts, and Dictionary. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
• Heath, J. (1981).Basic Materials in Mara: Grammar, Texts, and Dictionary. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
• Heath, J. (1986). "Massacre at Hodgson Downs". In Hercus, Luise; Sutton, Peter (eds.).This Is What Happened: Historical narratives by Aborigines. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. pp. 177–181.
• Sharpe, M. C. (1972).Alawa phonology and grammar. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.
• Sharpe, M. C. (1976). Dixon, R. M. W. (ed.). "Alawa, Mara and Warndarang".Grammatical Categories in Australian Languages. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies:708–729.

• Endangered indigenous Australian languages in the Northern Territory
• Mangarrayi–Maran languages

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