Nungali, or (with a different prefix) Yilngali, is an

Australian language The languages of Australia are the major historic and current languages used in Australia and its offshore islands. Over 250 Australian Aboriginal languages are thought to have existed at the time of first European contact. English is the majo ...

which is believed to be

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

. It was spoken in the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (abbreviated as NT; known formally as the Northern Territory of Australia and informally as the Territory) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian internal territory in the central and central-northern regi ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

, around the upper Daly River.Ethnologue
/ref> Its closest relative is the Jaminjung language.

Grammar

Cases

It is the only Yirram language which has retained the original four-class system in nominals. The four classes are

masculine Masculinity (also called manhood or manliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles generally associated with men and boys. Masculinity can be theoretically understood as socially constructed, and there is also evidence that some beh ...

feminine Femininity (also called womanliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and Gender roles, roles generally associated with women and girls. Femininity can be understood as Social construction of gender, socially constructed, and there is also s ...

neuter Neuter is a Latin adjective meaning "neither", and can refer to: *Neuter gender, a grammatical gender, a linguistic class of nouns triggering specific types of inflections in associated words * Neuter pronoun *Neutering, the sterilization of an an ...

and plants, and each of the classes have separate

prefix A prefix is an affix which is placed before the stem of a word. Particularly in the study of languages, a prefix is also called a preformative, because it alters the form of the word to which it is affixed. Prefixes, like other affixes, can b ...

es expressing the

absolutive case In grammar, the absolutive case ( abbreviated ) is the case of nouns in ergative–absolutive languages that would generally be the subjects of intransitive verbs or the objects of transitive verbs in the translational equivalents of nominativ ...

locative In grammar, the locative case ( ; abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which indicates a location. In languages using it, the locative case may perform a function which in English would be expressed with such prepositions as "in", "on", "at", and " ...

ergative case In grammar, the ergative case (abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that identifies a nominal phrase as the agent of a transitive verb in ergative–absolutive languages. Characteristics In such languages, the ergative case is typically m ...

, and the

dative case In grammar, the dative case ( abbreviated , or sometimes when it is a core argument) is a grammatical case used in some languages to indicate the recipient or beneficiary of an action, as in "", Latin for "Maria gave Jacob a drink". In this examp ...

. The

locative case In grammar, the locative case ( ; abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which indicates a location. In languages using it, the locative case may perform a function which in English would be expressed with such prepositions as "in", "on", "at", and ...

is also productive when it comes to

placenames Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of '' toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage, and types. ''Toponym'' is the general term for a proper nam ...

. An example is referring to the Timber Creek area, which consists of the neuter locative prefix , the word for ''"river gum"'', the

plural In many languages, a plural (sometimes list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated as pl., pl, , or ), is one of the values of the grammatical number, grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than ...

marker , and an additional marker of the neuter locative, .

References

{{Australian Aboriginal languages Yirram languages Extinct languages of the Northern Territory Languages extinct in the 2000s Indigenous Australian languages in the Northern Territory