Gunbarlang has been proposed to be included into the ''marne'' group of Gunwinyguan family,<ref>{{Cite book |title=Bininj Gun-Wok: A Pan-Dialectal Grammar of Mayali, Kunwinjku and Kune |last=Evans |first=N. |publisher=ANU |year=2003 |page=33 |hdl=1885/53188 |author-link=Nicholas Evans (linguist) |hdl-access=free}}</ref>, making its closest relatives the Central Gunwinyguan languages [[Bininj Kunwok language|Bininj Kunwok]] and [[Dalabon language|Dalabon]]. The label ''marne'' refers to the phonological shape of the [[benefactive]] [[applicative voice|applicative]] affix common to all three languages (as opposed to the ''bak'' languages to the east, e.g. [[Rembarrnga language|Rembarrnga]], [[Ngandi language|Ngandi]] and [[Nunggubuyu language|Wubuy/Nunggubuyu]]).<ref name="Alpher, Evans & Harvey 2003">Alpher, B., Evans, N. & Harvey, M. 2003. "Proto Gunwinyguan verb suffixes." In Nicholas Evans (ed.), ''The non-Pama-Nyungan languages of northern Australia: Comparative Studies of the continent's most linguistically complex region'', 305-352. Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University.</ref>
