Girish Mahajan (Editor)

Ngura languages

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Extinct
  
ca. 1990

Glottolog
  
ngur1261  (Ngura)

ISO 639-3
  
ekc (Eastern Karnic)

Geographic distribution
  
Northwest New South Wales, southwest Queensland, Australia

Linguistic classification
  
Pama–Nyungan; some languages may be Karnic, some Maric, but most are unclassified

Subdivisions
  
Wangkumara–Bundhamara Galali ? Bidjara ?? Dhiraila ?? Garandala ?? Mambangura ?? Mingbari ?? Ngurawarla ?? Yarumarra × Badjiri

Ngura is an ethnic designation of central Australia.

Of the various languages that have gone by this name, Bowern (2001) classifies Galali/Garlali and Wangkumara-plus-Bundhamara/Punthamara (a.k.a. Ngandangara/Yarumarra) as Eastern Karnic. Bidjara (not to be confused with the Bidjara language of the Maric languages) may be another, but there is not enough data to be sure. Bowern believes that Badjiri was probably not even a Karnic language, but again the data is too sketchy to be sure.

Other poorly attested varieties listed in Ethnologue are:

Dhiraila, Garandala (Karendala), Mambangura, Mingbari (Minkabari), Ngurawarla.

None of these can be usefully classified, and it is doubtful that Mingbari was an actual dialect. However, in 2013 the ISO code ekc was assigned to 'Eastern Karnic', including only the questionable varieties, despite the fact that it is not clear that there is any data for this 'language'.

References

Ngura languages Wikipedia