Matngele language

Matngele
Region	Northern Territory, Australia
Extinct	by 2006 census[1] perhaps 1 reported 1973; perhaps 10 reported 1990
Language family	Eastern Daly Matngele
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	zml
Glottolog	madn1237[2]
AIATSIS[1]	N12

Matngele or Madngele is an extinct Australian Aboriginal language of the Northern Territory.

Classification

Tryon (1974) classified Matngele with Kamu, and this is accepted by Dixon (2002) and Bowern (2011), though denied by Harvey (1990).^[1]

Phonology

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
Mid	e	u
Low			a

Consonants

		Peripheral		Laminal	Apical
		Bilabial	Velar	Palatal	Alveolar	Retroflex
Stop	Voiceless	p	k	c	t
	Voiced	b	a	ɟ	d
Nasal		m	ŋ	ɲ	n
Lateral				ʎ	l
Rhotic					ɲ	ɻ
Semivowel		w		j

Grammar

Matngele has only five simple verbs. These must be combined with coverbs in order to form complex verbs.

References

1. Matngele at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
2. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Madngele". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

• Dixon, R. M. W. (2002). Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Zandvoort, F. B. (1999). A grammar of Matngele. BA honours sub-thesis. Armidale: University of New England.