Native to Australia Extinct likely by 2003 | Ethnicity Lamalama ISO 639-3 umd | |
Region Cape York Peninsula, Queensland Language family Pama–Nyungan
Paman
Umbindhamu | ||
Umbindhamu (Umpithamu) is an extinct Australian aboriginal language of the Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, Australia. According to the Australian Indigenous Languages Database (AUSTLANG), there were two "full speakers" living in 2008.
According to Verstraete (2008:219), Umpithamu is 'one of four languages associated with a group of people currently known as Lamalama', the others being Morrobalama, Mba Rumbathama and Rimanggudinhma.
Classification
Though generally accepted as a branch of the Paman languages, Dixon believes it to be an isolate. According to Rigsby (1997), Umbindhamu shares some grammatical features with the other languages spoken by the Lamalama people (Lamalama, Rimanggudinhma, and Morrobalama), but it shares more lexicon with Ayapathu and Umpila.