Ethnicity Binbinga Indigenous Australians Native speakers 20 (2005) to 88 (2006 census) Language family MirndiNgurlunWambaya Dialects WambayaGudanjiBinbinka | ||
Wambaya is a Non-Pama-Nyungan West Barkly Australian language of the Mirndi language group that is spoken in the Barkly Tableland of the Northern Territory, Australia. Wambaya and the other members of the West Barkly languages are somewhat unusual in that they are suffixing languages, unlike most Non-Pama-Nyungan languages which are prefixing.
The language was reported to have 12 speakers in 1981, and some reports indicate that the language went extinct as a first language. However, in the 2011 Australian census 56 people stated that they speak Wambaya at home. That number increased to 89 by 2013 (http://www.ethnologue.com/language/wmb).
Nordlinger believes that Wambaya, Gudanji and Binbinka are dialects of one language.
References
Wambaya language Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA