Mantharta is a partly extinct

dialect cluster A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated varie ...

spoken in the southern Pilbara region of Western Australia. There were four varieties, which were distinct but largely mutually intelligible. The four were: * Tharrgari (Tharrkari, Dhargari), still spoken c. 2005 * Warriyangka (Wadiwangga), still spoken c. 1973 * Thiin (Thiinma), still spoken c. 2021 *

Jiwarli The Djiwarli, also written Jiwarli, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Pilbara region of Western Australia. Language The Jiwarli speak one of four dialects of Mantharta, the other members of the dialect continuum being the Thiin, War ...

(Tjiwarli), extinct by 2004 The name ''mantharta'' comes from the word for "man" in all four varieties.

Language revival

, the Warriyangga dialect is one of 20 languages prioritised as part of the Priority Languages Support Project, being undertaken by First Languages Australia and funded by the

Department of Communications and the Arts The Australian Department of Communications and the Arts was a department of the Government of Australia charged with responsibility for communications policy and programs and cultural affairs. In December 2019, prime minister Scott Morrison ...

. The project aims to "identify and document critically-endangered languages — those languages for which little or no documentation exists, where no recordings have previously been made, but where there are living speakers".

References

{{Reflist Extinct languages of Western Australia