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Wirangu |
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The Wirangu language is a moribund Australian Aboriginal language traditionally spoken by the Wirangu people, living on the
west coast of South Australia across a region encompassing modern Ceduna and Streaky Bay, stretching west approximately to
the Head of Bight and east to Lake Gairdner. The Wirangu language is most closely related to the Thura–Yura group of Australian
Aboriginal languages, which are spoken from the West Coast to the Adelaide area and north to the Flinders Ranges and Lake
Eyre. The best-known relatives of Wirangu are Banggarla, Nukunu, Adnyamathanha, Narangga and Kaurna. Because of the intensive
culture contacts in the southern half of South Australia, which brought dislocation and culture change, traditional lifeways
and traditional ways of speaking declined during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the case of Wirangu, the establishment
of the Koonibba Mission in 1898 brought intense contact with other languages, in particular Kokatha. As all languages spoken
in South Australia are ultimately derived from the same ancestor, they share a common inheritance of grammar, lexicon and
pronunciation. Moreover, neighbouring languages often borrow words from one another, and the new intense contacts at Koonibba
led to a significant influx of Kokatha words which have become part of present day Wirangu. Although there are very few fully
fluent Wirangu speakers left, many Aboriginal people in the Ceduna area remember parts of the language. A Wirangu language
revitalization program has been underway at Ceduna and surrounding areas since 2004. This has involved the recording of Wirangu
language from the last two recognized full speakers of the language, Gladys and Doreen Miller. With the assistance of linguists
from the University of Adelaide a number of printed and digital books have been produced for use in schools and in the wider
community. In 2005 the Far West Languages Centre was established in Ceduna. The Centre supports and promotes the use of the
Wirangu language as well as other extremely endangered local languages, such as Gugada/Kokatha and Mirning. |
Names (more)[en] Wirangu |
Language type : Extinct
Technical notes
This page is providing structured data for the language Wirangu. |
ISO 639 CodesISO 639-3 : wguLinked Data URIshttp://lexvo.org/id/iso639-3/wguhttp://dbpedia.org/resource/ISO_639:wgu More URIs at sameas.org SourcesAuthority documentation for ISO 639 identifier: wguFreebase ISO 639-3 : wgu GeoNames.org Country Information Publications Office of the European Union Metadata Registry : Countries and Languages |