Worrorra language

Worrorra, also written Worora and other variants, and also known as Western Worrorran, is a moribund Australian Aboriginal language of northern Western Australia. It encompasses a number of dialects, which are spoken by a group of people known as the Worrorra people.

Worrorra
Worrorran languages (purple), among other non-Pama-Nyungan languages (grey)
Region	Western Australia
Ethnicity	Worrorra, Unggumi, Yawijibaya, Unggarranggu, Umiida
Native speakers	8 (2021 census)[1]
Language family	Wororan (Western) Worrorra
Dialects	Worrorra Unggumi Yawidjibara Windjarumi Unggarrangu Umiida[2]
Signed forms	Worora Kinship Sign Language
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Variously: wro – Worrorra xgu – Unggumi xud – Umiida xun – Unggarranggu jbw – Yawijibaya
Glottolog	west2435
AIATSIS[3]	K17 Worrorra, K14 Unggumi, K49 Umiida, K55 Unggarrangu, K53 Yawijibaya
ELP	Worrorra
Worrorran languages

It is one of a group of Worrorran languages, the other two being Wunambal and Ngarinyin.

Dialects of (western) Worrorra

Worrorra is a dialect cluster; Bowern (2011) recognises five languages: Worrorra proper, Unggumi, Yawijibaya, Unggarranggu, and Umiida.^[4] McGregor and Rumsey (2009) include the above dialects and also include Winyjarrumi (Winjarumi), describing Worrorra as a non-Pama-Nyungan language of the Worrorran group of languages known properly as western Worrorran.^[3]

Umiida, Unggarrangu, Unggumi, and Yawijibaya peoples are described in separate articles.

An alleged Maialnga language was a reported clan name of Worrorra proper that could not be confirmed with speakers.^[5]

Notable people

Elkin Umbagai was a translator between English and Worrorra.^[6]

Phonology

Worrorra consonant phonemes^[7][8]

	Bilabial	Inter- dental	Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar
Stop	p	t̪	t	ʈ	c	k
Nasal	m	n̪	n	ɳ	ɲ	ŋ
Rhotic			ɾ~r
Lateral			l	ɭ	ʎ
Approximant	w			ɻ	j

• A nasal occurring before a stop consonant, is then realised as a prenasalized voiced stop sound (ex. [ŋɡ]).
• /r/ can be heard as a trill or a flap, and is typically only voiced when preceding a sonorant, voiced phoneme, or lateral consonant. Elsewhere, it is voiceless as [r̥], or can be heard in free variation.
• /j/ can also be heard as a fricative sound [ç] in word-initial positions.

Worrorra vowel inventory^[7]

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
Mid	e		o
Low		a

• Long vowel sounds are noted as follows: /iː, ɛː, uː, ɔː, ɑː/.
• In between consonant clusters, an epenthetic vowel sound [ʉ̆] ~ [ɨ̆] occurs when breaking them up. Sometimes it can also be heard as a central vowel sound [ɨ].^[8]

Phoneme	Allophones[8]
/i/	[i], [ɪ]
/a/	[a], [ɒ], [æ], [ɛ̞], [ɑ], [ɐ]
/u/	[u], [y], [ʊ]
/iː/	[iː], [ɪː]
/ɛː/	[eɪ], [ɛː] ~ [eː]
/ɑː/	[ɑˑɪ], [ɑ]
/ɔː/	[oʊ], [ɔː] ~ [ɒː]
/uː/	[uː], [ʊː]

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,^[9] but it is not clear from records that it was particularly well developed compared to other Australian Aboriginal sign languages.^[10]

References

1. Australian Bureau of Statistics (2021). "Cultural diversity: Census". Retrieved 13 October 2022.
2. Clendon (1994, 2000), Love (2000), cited in Dixon 2002
3. K17 Worrorra at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies  (see the info box for additional links)
4. Bowern, Claire. 2011. "How Many Languages Were Spoken in Australia? Archived 2012-08-15 at the Wayback Machine", Anggarrgoon: Australian languages on the web, December 23, 2011 (corrected Archived 2012-07-03 at the Wayback Machine February 6, 2012)
5. Tindale, Norman B. (Norman Barnett); Jones, Rhys (1974), Aboriginal tribes of Australia : their terrain, environmental controls, distribution, limits, and proper names, University of California Press ; Canberra : Australian National University Press, ISBN 978-0-520-02005-4
6. Valda J. Blundell and Mary Anne Jebb. "Umbagai, Elkin (1921–1980)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Retrieved 4 November 2013.
7. Capell, Arthur; Coate, Howard H. J. (1984). Comparative studies in Northern Kimberley languages. Pacific Linguistics Series C. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. ISBN 0-85883-314-X.
8. Clendon, Mark (2014). Worrorra: A language of the north-west Kimberley coast. Adelaide: University of Adelaide. pp. 24–39.
9. 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.
10. Kendon, A. (1988) Sign Languages of Aboriginal Australia: Cultural, Semiotic and Communicative Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Further reading

• Clendon, Mark (2014). Worrorra: A language of the north-west Kimberley coast. University of Adelaide. doi:10.20851/worrorra. hdl:2440/84235. ISBN 978-1-922064-59-2.