Worrorra language

Worrorra
Region Western Australia
Native speakers
 4 (2005) to 22 (2006 census)[1]
Wororan

  • (Western)

    • Worrorra
Dialects
Worrorra
Unggumi
Yawidjibara
Windjarumi
Unggarrangu
Umiida[2]
Worora Kinship Sign Language
Language codes
ISO 639-3 unp – inclusive code
Individual codes:
wro – Worrorra
xgu – Unggumi
xud – Umiida
xun – Unggarranggu
jbw – Yawijibaya
Glottolog west2435[3]
AIATSIS[1] K17 Worrorra, K14 Unggumi, K49 Umiida, K55* Unggarrangu, K53* Yawijibaya

Worrorra (Worora), or Western Worrorran, is a moribund Australian Aboriginal language of northern Western Australia.

Worrorra is a dialect cluster; Bowern (2011) recognizes five languages: Worrorra proper, Unggumi, Yawijibaya, Unggarranggu, and Umiida.[4]

An alleged Maialnga language was a reported clan name of Worrorra proper that could not be confirmed with speakers (Tyndale 1974).

Sign language

The Worora have (or at one point had) a signed form of their language, used for speaking to kin in certain taboo relationships,[5] but it is not clear from records that it was particularly well developed compared to other Australian Aboriginal sign languages.[6]

References

  1. 1 2 Worrorra at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies  (see the info box for additional links)
  2. ↑ Clendon (1994, 2000), Love (2000), cited in Dixon 2002
  3. ↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Western Worrorran". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
  4. ↑ Bowern, Claire. 2011. "How Many Languages Were Spoken in Australia?", Anggarrgoon: Australian languages on the web, December 23, 2011 (corrected February 6, 2012)
  5. ↑ Love, J.R.B. (1941). Worora kinship gestures, Reprinted in Aboriginal sign languages of the Americas and Australia. New York: Plenum Press, 1978, vol. 2, pp. 403–405.
  6. ↑ Kendon, A. (1988) Sign Languages of Aboriginal Australia: Cultural, Semiotic and Communicative Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
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