Yinjibarndi is a Pama–Nyungan language spoken by the Yindjibarndi people of the

Pilbara The Pilbara () is a large, dry, sparsely populated regions of Western Australia, region in the north of Western Australia. It is known for its Indigenous Australians, Aboriginal people; wealth disparity; its ancient landscapes; the prevailing r ...

region in north-western

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 ...

. Yinjibarndi is

mutually intelligible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between different but related language varieties in which speakers of the different varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. Mutual intellig ...

with Kurrama, but the two are considered distinct languages by their speakers.

Classification

Yindjibarndi is classified as a member of the Ngayarta branch of the

Pama–Nyungan languages The Pama–Nyungan languages () are the most widespread language family, family of Australian Aboriginal languages, containing 306 out of 400 Aboriginal languages in Australia. The name "Pama–Nyungan" is a merism: it is derived from the two e ...

. Under Carl Georg von Brandenstein's 1967 classification, Yindjibarndi was classed as an Inland Ngayarda language, but the separation of the Ngayarda languages into Coastal and Inland groups is no longer considered valid.

Sounds

Grammar

Pronouns

Yindjibarndi, like Lardil, has pronouns that indicate whether the referents include two people separated by an odd number of generations or not.

Influence on other languages

The verb , meaning 'to separate (grain or pieces of mineral) by shaking in a special shallow dish', comes from Yindjibarndi.''

Oxford Dictionary of English The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' (''ODE'') is a single-volume English dictionary published by Oxford University Press, first published in 1998 as ''The New Oxford Dictionary of English'' (''NODE''). The word "New" was dropped from the titl ...

'', p 2,055.

References

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