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 unpinclusive 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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