Yinjibarndi language

Yinjibarndi
Burnugundi, Mandanjingu
Native to	Australia
Region	Roebourne region of Western Australia
Ethnicity	Yindjibarndi
Native speakers	380 (2021 census)[1]
Language family	Pama–Nyungan Ngayarda Yinjibarndi
Dialects	Kurrama
Language codes
ISO 639-3	yij
Glottolog	yind1247
AIATSIS[2]	W37
ELP	Yindjibarndi

Yinjibarndi is a Pama–Nyungan language spoken by the Yindjibarndi people of the Pilbara region in north-western Australia.

Yinjibarndi is mutually intelligible with Kurrama, but the two are considered distinct languages by their speakers.

Classification

Yindjibarndi is classified as a member of the Ngayarta branch of the Pama–Nyungan languages. Under Carl Georg von Brandenstein's 1967 classification, Yindjibarndi was classed as an Inland Ngayarda language, but the separation of the Ngayarda languages into Coastal and Inland groups is no longer considered valid.

Sounds

Consonant phonemes^[3]

	Peripheral		Laminal		Apical
	Bilabial	Velar	Palatal	Dental	Alveolar	Retroflex
Plosive	p	k	c	t̪	t	ʈ
Nasal	m	ŋ	ɲ	n̪	n	ɳ
Rhotic					ɾ ~ r
Lateral					l	ɭ
Approximant	w		j	j̪		ɻ

Vowel inventory^[3]

	Front	Central	Back
High	i, iː		u, uː
Low		a, aː	oː

Grammar

Pronouns

Yindjibarndi, like Lardil, has pronouns that indicate whether the referents include two people separated by an odd number of generations or not.^{[citation needed]}

Influence on other languages

The verb yandy, meaning 'to separate (grain or pieces of mineral) by shaking in a special shallow dish', comes from Yindjibarndi.^[4]

References

1. Australian Bureau of Statistics (2021). "Cultural diversity: Census". Retrieved 13 October 2022.
2. W37 Yinjibarndi at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
3. Wordick, F. J. F. (1982). The Yindjibarndi language. Pacific Linguistics Series C. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. ISBN 0-85883-265-8.
4. Oxford Dictionary of English, p 2,055.