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

Australian language Australia legally has no official language. However, English is by far the most commonly spoken and has been entrenched as the ''de facto'' national language since European settlement. "English has no de jure status but it is so entrench ...

which is believed to be extinct. It was spoken in the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory shares its borders with Western Au ...

of Australia, around the upper Daly River.Ethnologue
/ref> Its closest relative is the

Jaminjung language Jaminjung is a moribund Australian language spoken around the Victoria River in the Northern Territory of Australia. There seems to be a steady increase in the number of speakers of the language with very few people speaking the language in ...

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

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 ...

and plants, and each of the classes have separate

prefix A prefix is an affix which is placed before the stem of a word. Adding it to the beginning of one word changes it into another word. For example, when the prefix ''un-'' is added to the word ''happy'', it creates the word ''unhappy''. Particu ...

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 nominative� ...

locative In grammar, the locative case (abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which indicates a location. It corresponds vaguely to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by". The locative case belongs to the general local cases, together with the ...

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

, 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 "Maria Jacobo potum dedit", Latin for "Maria gave Jacob ...

. The

locative case In grammar, the locative case ( abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which indicates a location. It corresponds vaguely to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by". The locative case belongs to the general local cases, together with the ...

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 name of ...

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

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

marker ''-purru'', and an additional marker of the neuter locative, ''-ni''.

References

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