Wurrugu language

Wurrugu
Popham Bay language
Region	Northern Territory, Australia
Extinct	Attested in the 19th century.
Language family	Iwaidjan Wurrugu–Marrgu Wurrugu
Language codes
ISO 639-3	wur

About the language and its speakers

Wurrugu is one of the Australian aboriginalPama–Nyungan languages. Wurrugu also belongs to the Iwaidjan family. According to Ethnologue, Wurrugu which was once spoken in the Coburg peninsula of the Northern Territory is now extinct.

Phonology

Consonant inventory

	Bilabial	Apico-alveolar	Apico-retroflex	Lamino-dental	Lamino-alveolar	Velar
Stop	b	d	ɖ		ƫ	k
Nasal	m	n	ɳ		ɲ	ŋ
Approximant	w		ɺ		y	Ɣ
Tap			ɽ
Trill		r
Lateral		l	ɭ		(ly)
Flapped lateral	Ǐ (ld)	˘ɭ (rld)

Notes on the consonant inventory

• Unlike Marrgu which belongs to the Iwaidjan family, Ilgar does not have any Lamino Dentals.
• The consonant inventory given above is the one provided by Evans(1998). It is important to note that certain phonetic symbols that Evans uses might conflict with the standard IPA symbols.

For example :

Description	Symbol used by Evans	IPA symbol
Apico-retroflex approximant	ɹ	ɻ
Velar approximant	Ɣ	ɰ
Lamino-alveolar approximant	y	ɹ

Vowels

Evans(1998)briefly discusses vowels in his paper noting that Iwaidjan languages including Marrgu have a three vowel ( /a/, /i/, /u/) system typical of most Australian languages.

Further reading

Evans, N. (1996). First and last notes on Wurrugu. University of Melbourne Working Papers in Linguistics , 16, 91-98.