Malgana language

Malgana is the Aboriginal Australian language of the Malgana people of Western Australia. It is one of the Kartu languages of the Pama–Nyungan family of languages.

Malgana
RegionShark Bay area of Western Australia
EthnicityMalgana people
Extinct(date missing)
Dialects
  • Kakurtu (riverside Malgana)
  • Ngulartu (bush Malgana)
Language codes
ISO 639-3vml
Glottologmalg1242
AIATSIS[1]W18
ELPMalkana

Malgana country is the area around Shark Bay in Western Australia. In particular it includes the Peron and Edel Land Peninsulas as well as some of the adjoining land. Buluguda, Damala, and Watjanti were likely Malgana-speaking locations or social groupings, rather than dialects.

The Irra Wangga Language Centre (having taken over from the Yamaji Language Centre) has been carrying out work on the Malgana language since 1995, and has produced an illustrated wordlist from local speakers of the language. A Sketch Grammar of Malgana (Gargett, 2012) was published by Pacific Linguistics.[2]

Phonology

Consonants
Peripheral Laminal Apical
Labial Velar Dental Palatal Alveolar Retroflex
Stop b ɡ t̪ ɟ d ɖ
Nasal m ŋ n̪ ɲ n ɳ
Lateral l̪ ʎ l ɭ
Rhotic ɹ ɽ
Approximant w j

Vowels
Front Back
High i iː u uː
Low a aː

References
  1. W18 Malgana at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
  2. "Irra Wangga". Bundiyarra. Retrieved 22 October 2023.

Gargett, Andrew. (2011). A salvage grammar of Malgana, the language of Shark Bay, Western Australia. (Pacific Linguistics, 624.) Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University.


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