TheNdjébbana language, also speltDjeebbana andNdjebanna and also known asKunibidji (Gunavidji,Gunivugi,Gombudj), is aBurarran language spoken by theGunavidji (Ndjebbana) people of North-centralArnhem Land in theNorthern Territory of Australia.
Sounds /b, ɟ, d, ɖ/ may also be heard as voiceless [p, c, t, ʈ] when in word-final position or when preceding other stop consonants. They may also occur asgeminated, where they are always pronounced as [pː, cː, tː, ʈː].
/ɾ/ can be heard as either a flap[ɾ] or a trill[r].
/k/ can be heard as[ɣ] in intervocalic position or when followed by a liquid sound.
/b/ can be heard as[β] when in intervocalic position.
Auld, Glenn. 2005. The literacy practices of Kunibídji children: Text, technology and transformation. PhD thesis, University of Ballarat.
Capell, Arthur. 1942. Languages of Arnhem Land, North Australia.Oceania, 12 (4), 364-392.
Elwell, Vanessa. 1977.Multilingualism and lingua francas among Australian Aborigines: A case study of Maningrida. Honours Thesis, Australian National University.
Elwell, Vanessa. 1982. Some social factors affecting multilingualism among Aboriginal Australians: a case study of Maningrida.International Journal of the Sociology of Language36: 83-103.
Green, Rebecca. 2003. Proto Maningrida within Proto Arnhem: evidence from verbal inflectional suffixes. In N. Evans (ed.),The non-Pama-Nyungan languages of Northern Australia: comparative studies of the continent's most linguistically complex region(pp. 369–421). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
Handelsmann, Robert. 1996.Needs Survey of Community Languages: Central Arnhem Land, Northern Territory (Maningrida and Outstations). Report to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, Canberra.
Jones, Peter. 1987.The Kunibidji Bilingual Program Handbook. Maningrida School: Maningrida.
Maningrida CEC's Literature Production Centre, 2009.My own Ndjébbana dictionary : a b d dj e i k l m n ng nj o r rd rl rn rr u w ya.Winnelie, N.T.: Maningrida CEC.
McKay, Graham R. 1984. Stop Alternations in Ndjébbana (Kunibidji) + Comments on Waters' Comments on Gemination in Rembarnga.Pacific Linguistics. Series A: Occasional Papers.
McKay, Graham R. 1996. Body parts, possession marking and nominal classes in Ndjébbana. In H. Chappell and W. McGregor (eds)The Grammar of inalienability : a typological perspective on body part terms and the part-whole relation. Berlin; New York : M. de Gruyter. pp. 293–326.
McKay, Graham. 2000. Ndjébbana. In R.M.W. Dixon & B.J. Blake (eds),The handbook of Australian languages: Volume 5 (pp. 155–354). Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
