| Wambaya | |
| Also Known As: | McArthur River |
| States: | Australia |
| Region: | Barkly Tableland, Northern Territory |
| Ethnicity: | Wambaya, Gudanji, Binbinga |
| Speakers: | 43 |
| Speakers2: | (24 Wambaya; 19 Gudanji) |
| Date: | 2021 census |
| Ref: | [1] |
| Familycolor: | Australian |
| Fam1: | Mirndi |
| Fam2: | Ngurlun |
| Dia1: | Wambaya |
| Dia2: | Gudanji |
| Dia3: | Binbinka |
| Lc1: | wmb |
| Ld1: | Wambaya |
| Lc2: | nji |
| Ld2: | Gudanji |
| Glotto: | wamb1258 |
| Glottorefname: | Wambayan |
| Aiatsis: | C19 |
| Aiatsisname: | Wambaya |
| Aiatsis2: | C26 |
| Aiatsisname2: | Gurdanji |
| Aiatsis3: | N138 |
| Aiatsisname3: | Binbinga |
| Elp2: | 5554 |
| Elpname2: | Binbinka |
Wambaya is a Non-Pama-Nyungan West Barkly Australian language of the Mirndi language group[2] that is spoken in the Barkly Tableland of the Northern Territory, Australia.[3] Wambaya and the other members of the West Barkly languages are somewhat unusual in that they are suffixing languages, unlike most Non-Pama-Nyungan languages which are prefixing.[2]
The language was reported to have 12 speakers in 1981, and some reports indicate that the language went extinct as a first language. However, in the 2011 Australian census 56 people stated that they speak Wambaya at home.[4] That number increased to 61 in the 2016 Census.[5]
Rachel Nordlinger notes that the speech of the Wambaya, Gudanji and Binbinka people "are clearly dialects" of a single language, which she calls "McArthur", while Ngarnga is closely related but is "probably best considered a language of its own".[6]
| Peripheral | Laminal | Apical | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labial | Velar | Palatal | Alveolar | Retroflex | ||
| Stop | b | ɡ | ɟ | d | ɖ | |
| Nasal | m | ŋ | ɲ | n | ɳ | |
| Lateral | ʎ | l | ɭ | |||
| Rhotic | ɾ ~ r | ɻ | ||||
| Approximant | w | j | ||||
| Front | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| High | ɪ, iː | ʊ, uː | |
| Low | a, aː | ||