Talk:Noongar language

Congratulations on the creation of this page
This is an excellent start level article on the background of the Noongar language in which I am very interested. Has anyone done a linguistic analysis of the phonemics of this language? John D. Croft (talk) 09:04, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Word list

 * Birak/Bunuru = Hot/Dry seasons (December January/ Febuary March)
 * Gurda = Heart
 * Gwaba = Good
 * Humpy = dwelling
 * Kardang = Brother
 * Mammul = Son
 * Ngooyoong = sugar
 * Ngilgee = Girls name
 * Noorook = Egg
 * Thirroul = Valley
 * Tunak = 'Twenty Eight' parrot
 * Wa-dung = Crow

orthography (spelling)
Spelling of many Aboriginal words is disputed, although phonetic spelling is generally prefferred. Tradimus (talk) 08:54, 10 September 2018 (UTC)


 * On that subject: There are lists, with recommended orthography and pronunciation, for species of plants, birds and mammals, produced by Ian Abbott. I will add these later tonight. —— cygnis insignis 11:45, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I added some notes on Abbott's published lists, does this address some of your concerns. There is some discussion of orthography and accuracy in the paper, should be of interest to you. — cygnis insignis 06:15, 11 September 2018 (UTC)


 * On that subject: Not sure where you added things. I am pretty comfortable with spelling inherited from Inglesh, Djerman and Doetch. Feel free to add a word list. My point is that there are now so many sources that a wiki list is possible. The peak Noongar authority is encouraging access with dictionaries posted themselves and in Rose Whitehall dictionaryTradimus (talk) 14:27, 13 September 2018 (UTC)Tradimus (talk) 14:29, 13 September 2018 (UTC)


 * I added wordlists in this revision, which you can see in the page history tab. I haven't converted that information into a list, only incorporating it into the articles on the species; it is a good idea though. — cygnis insignis 14:32, 13 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Ian Abbott is only one of many sources. A word list has been started in the Noongarpedia at [] Perhaps an administrator can check these links are appropriate and delete our comments. Tradimus (talk) 14:23, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Move to Noongar language?
It seems as if the preferred spelling of the language is now Noongar (see article and AIATSIS - Noongar/Nyoongar), and we have the people at Noongar people. Does anyone mind if I move this article? Or go ahead, anyone else! (Usually I just move to the preferred AIATSIS spelling myself these days, but as I know there are several active WA editors, thought I'd ask the question here first). Laterthanyouthink (talk) 08:41, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I would support a move, "Noongar" seems to be supplanting any other orthography, eg. Hopper—when discussing "Sandplain and Kwongkan; historical meanings …" —presumably thought twice about using the spelling "Noongar". ~ cygnis insignis 12:46, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks, . I would think that this one is fairly uncontroversial, but I'll just tag here as they have done quite a bit of work on Aboriginal languages... Anyone else? ? Laterthanyouthink (talk) 05:45, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
 * as much as the Noongar community identify as Noongar, or Nyoongar, and most source use the oo spelling the ISO 639-3 code https://iso639-3.sil.org/code/nys has it as nyungar. So we have the utterly ridiculous situation of the article title not reflecting reality and usages.  We are see that with so many Traditional Owner languages and cultures even a month of discussion still has failed removed the offensive term ab....ines for naming structures. Any linguists is going to defend the ISO codes, its just not worth opening another area of arguments. Gnangarra 06:34, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
 * There's nothing offensive about using Nyungar. The modern community identifying itself as Noongar prefers to drop the palatization in the widespread early variant we associate particularly with the Wudjari and Nyunga/Nunga(r). Aboriginal languages are no more static than any other species of human tongue. So be it. Nishidani (talk) 11:21, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
 * But don't we usually follow AIATSIS for language spellings? Or do we give priority to the ISO spelling in this case? Move it or not? Laterthanyouthink (talk) 11:50, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm for moving it, Gnangarra 12:06, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I think so too. Hughesdarren (talk) 12:26, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I'll admit that I prefer Nyungar purely out of prejudice. The word Noongar is equally attested and now preferred by that community, but it adopts a form that whites are comfortable with. The vocalization/spelling 'nyu'. Whatever the status of that sound originally - it looks like a    voiced velar or palatal nasal - it probably represented a sound not in English in initial position. 'Noongar' on the other hand  accommodates the English 'n' where the tongue hits the front of the palate, instead of clamming it midback. Any Aussie drongo of impeccable white credentials can pronounce 'Noongar', whereas the nasal vibrato of 'Nyungar', being unfamiliar, would make listeners stop to think. Making people stop, in order to have them think, is pretty important in an homogenizing world where we all havta thunk Inglish.  Nishidani (talk) 13:00, 27 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Support move. "Any linguists is going to defend the ISO codes" is not quite true. Many of the ISO spellings are made-up crap (dgmw, that does not include "Nyungar"!), and unfortunately get reproduced via tertiary literature (e.g. Makasar, Te'un, Li'o etc. in my research area). Not all linguists give in to use these abominations. Back to the topic: WP:COMMONNAME should be the guide here, not only the common name in scholarship (which often lags behind or occasionally goes its own ways). The Noongar community is bilingual, so their usage is English usage, and should have quite some weight for determining the common name i.e. the best page title. The story behind the name may be telling, but we're not here to right great wrongs. I mean, we even have communities (in other parts of the world) who self-identify with a typo. –Austronesier (talk) 18:10, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
 * "The Noongar community is bilingual"
 * No it isn't. Do your arithmetic. The relevant data can be found on this article and the Noongar people page. One should make judgments on facts, not wishful thinking.Nishidani (talk) 18:39, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Ok, that was sloppy. But the facts make it even swing more towards Noongar as common name, no? –Austronesier (talk) 19:28, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
 * The only thing that matters for naming a group is what that group, consensually, determines to be the ethnonym they prefer to be called by. It may well be sucking up to white phonology and sacrificing something that would probably have had some non-English phoneme with greater claims to authenticity, as I suggest above, but if they are happy with that, it's not for us to complain.Nishidani (talk) 21:29, 27 April 2021 (UTC)


 * actually Noongars are forced to be biingual its a legacy of the colonial genocidal system, speakers must speak and understand english because the Australian legal systems deny noongar speakers translators as it does most indigenous languages. The point of Professor Collards issue with the numbers that it was illegal to speak noongar in government facilities like schools only 30 years ago that mean there is great reluctance to even acknowledge in Government surveys that you can speak Noongar or any of the other 300 odd languages. Ironically when I went school it was common for Noongar students to be physically punished simple for using noongar words that the SW Australian English had stolen, while the white kids could say those same words without retribution. Gnangarra 23:58, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Support move - Austronesier and Nishidani have both commented about what is relevant here - that consensually the group determines what they prefer to be called by - a careful examination of communities throughout western australia will show the names that outsiders call them, and in most cases what they call themselves - often it can be very different terms. JarrahTree 02:11, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 1 July 2022

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 17:47, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Nyungar language → Noongar language – "Noongar" seems to be the substantially most common spelling of the language, based on Ngrams; "Noongar" also seems to be the spelling typically used by Noongar organizations (e.g. and ). Changing the spelling would also make this article WP:CONSISTENT with Noongar. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 16:20, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
 * An informal discussion about this topic was held last year, so I'm also pinging all participants in that past discussion:, , , , , , . ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 16:20, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Support, per NOM and above discussion. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 02:01, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Support as per the previous discussion Noongar is the common usage, Nyungar is the ISO standard term, noting the use of Nyoongar has gain some traction in usage over the last couple of years especially with the new generation of academics and young people. As long as redirects are in place for Nyoongar & Nyungar its fine. Gnangarra 04:46, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
 * — a point worth noting explicitly in the article. Reference. (Probably simpler to wait until the article is renamed, to avoid having to reword the text when the article name changes.) Mitch Ames (talk) 06:17, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Support, as per Gnangarra. Hughesdarren (talk) 05:01, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Support, per WP:COMMONNAME, WP:CONSISTENT. Mitch Ames (talk) 06:12, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

Use of Noongar, Nyungar in article text
Now that we've renamed the article, we should probably replace most instances of Nyungar in the article text with Noongar, to match the article title. I say "most" because we need some mention of the alternate spellings, including reasons and the fact that Nyungar is the ISO standard term. A selective search-and-replace might do most of the work, then manual edits where Nyungar is required (including reversing the order of the terms in the lead sentence so article title spelling is first, per MOS:FIRST, MOS:BOLDALTNAMES). Mitch Ames (talk) 03:25, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Specifically is it Neo-Nyungar or Neo-Noongar? I've created the latter as a redirect, because it seems reasonable given the new article title. Mitch Ames (talk) 03:30, 9 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I've just gone through and swapped usage of the Noongar vs. Nyungar spellings throughout the body text. However, I left Neo-Nyungar alone for the time being, as I'm not familiar enough with that area to know whether there's a strong spelling preference among the Neo-Noongar community. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 13:30, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Number of speakers
We currently have two different figures for number of speakers at home, from 2016 census:
 * 443 from https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-peoples/language-statistics-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-peoples/jun-2016/Language%20speakers.xlsx, accessed via https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-peoples/language-statistics-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-peoples/jun-2016#using-abs-language-data
 * 475 from
 * https://explore.data.abs.gov.au/vis?tm=nyungar&pg=0&df[ds]=CENSUS_2016_TOPICS&df[id]=ABS_C16_T09_SA&df[ag]=ABS&df[vs]=1.0.0&pd=2016%2C&dq=....0&ly[cl]=SEX_ABS&ly[rw]=LANP_2016
 * (convoluted URL does not display correctly as clickable link, but you can copy and pasted it)
 * accessed via http://stat.data.abs.gov.au/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=ABS_C16_T09_SA

Why do they differ? Which should we use? Mitch Ames (talk) 06:38, 9 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Because the term 'Noongar speaker' is subjective, covering (a) people with a knowledge of anything from a handful to a lot of Noongar terms to (b) a few who can actually, like apparently Len Collard, deliver a short address in that language. According to the sources cited here, (b) number 5 people, and none of these qualify in linguistic terms as a 'fluent native speaker', i.e., comfortable in expressing themselves on anything or everything.  A census is a matter of filling out a form, and if one ticks Noongar, there is no evidence that the (a) group is grammatically fluent as people in the (b) group. The language, whatever, should be 'neo-Noongar' to refer to the synthesis of Noongar dialects taught now. The Mineng terms for the six seasons were completely different from those used by the Whadjuk round the Swan river. Since political correctness rules this page, rather than realism (which would oblige one to do what Israelis did, as has been attempted in South Australia by an Israeli linguist, i.e., refashion a modern version of a well-documented set of dialects, and forge a new grammar and idiom with which to raise descendants in. That would take some decades, but it would do far more for the 25,000 Noongar people, and Westralians generally, than just teaching a short list of terms for bush tucker and the like).Nishidani (talk) 15:04, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

UWA ref
Re: ...

The unit is "Introduction to Indigenous Heritage and Knowledge" not "Introduction to Noongar language". There's nothing in the ref (or the unit outline) that says that participants in the course actually learn the language per se.

Addressing specific edit comments:


 * The unit doesn’t have to be solely about learning the language, as long as it teaches any part if it. A stated subject of this unit is looking at "language from the south of Western Australia with a focus on Noongar" – so that INCLUDES Noongar at MINIMUM. A stated outcome is "demonstrate knowledge of the subject in writing" – whether the writing is in Noongar or another language is irrelevant, because either outcome is demonstrating knowledge of the subject, one subject at MINIMUM being Noongar. Are you suggesting UWA gives credit for achieving a learning outcome that UWA isn’t delivering? Please provide a reference to proof of this alleged outrage before removing the reference to this unit! Betterkeks (talk) 05:41, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

Addressing specific edit comments:
 * "examines Aboriginal ... language .. with a focus on Noongar" - but so does the Wikipedia article, and I don't think we could claim that the Wikipedia article is "teaching Noongar language".


 * OMG Mitch! Wikipedia does not test outcomes, the unit does. So Wikipedia cannot PROOVE it is teaching, the unit can. Betterkeks (talk) 05:41, 10 July 2022 (UTC)


 * outcome is "demonstrate knowledge of the subject in writing" - note that it does not mention which language that writing is in (and "voice" is not "language").


 * Whether the writing is in Noongar or another language is irrelevant, because either outcome is demonstrating knowledge of the subject, one subject at MINIMUM being Noongar. Betterkeks (talk) 05:41, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

Mitch Ames (talk) 03:54, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
 * "engage with experiences in the field and connect these experiences to cultural and historical contexts" - again no mention of speaking, reading or writing in Noongar language.


 * Students have to connect field experiences to cultural and historical contexts in a unit that examines memory, culture and language and focuses "on Noongar heritage and cultural continuity", and you read this as possibly not being in part about Noongar language at ALL? That they ACTUALLY end up doing this about some OTHER language? That would be as misleading as outrageous, and not a reasonable reading of the material before you Mitch. Please provide a reference to proof of this alleged academic misconduct by the university before removing the reference to the unit! Betterkeks (talk) 05:41, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
 * All of that coursework waffle is beside the point. I have clicked through every youtube offering of Noongar speech, and cannot find one example of two people talking casually or otherwise to each other. Apropos the uni course waffle, by this criterion, I must be a native speaker of several more languages than those I actually know, because I know  hundreds of Irish words, to cite just one, which I can connect to the cultural and historical circumstances of their use, but cannot hold even a minimal conversation with any native speaker of that language. What such Uni courses do is teach an extinct or 'moribund' tongue as an L2 to students whose mother tongue is another language, which is the vehicle (here (Australian)English) for the lectures and explanatory papers.  If there were 450 speakers of Noongar universities would be conducting field research, writing papers for linguistic journals and elaborate grammars  reporting on usage, as they do elsewhere all over Australia with endangered languages and krioles. And in all scientific studies, fluency is always graded from 'basic' awareness of some terms, through an ability to talk a little, to conversational ease, so that the 450+ figure is deceptive, it makes no distinction between the various levels of competence, from some vocabulary to full fluency. Full fluency in languages under revival programmes is attained by less than 5% of those taught. Name examples of this research and you may get a hearing.   Nishidani (talk) 07:24, 10 July 2022 (UTC)


 * I'm sure a participant in the course would learn some Noongar words, but that's not the same as saying that the course actively teaches the language. The course title is not "language", it's "heritage and knowledge". There's nothing in the course description that explicitly says "learn the language", and nothing in the outcomes that say "students learn some Noongar words, phrases etc, can hold a basic conversation in Noongar language" (and I think they'd mention that if they were actively teaching the language, that being the whole point of a language course). As you rightly pointed out, and the outcomes, including the assessment rubrics, make no mention of any knowledge of or competency in the Noongar language. That's probably because the unit subject - of which the student is able to demonstrate knowledge - "is "Indigenous Heritage and Knowledge" not "Noongar language".
 * We have a perfectly good reference for universities explicitly teaching the language, why not just leave it at that? Mitch Ames (talk) 07:44, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
 * The UWA you cant actually learn noongar culture and heritage without learning the language its all intwined, the way noongar language works what you call a word can actually be a full sentence. Take Katanning its a full sentence mean this is the place of the head, its related to cultural story as Katanning is where the head was placed, along with other parts of the body around Katanning are also places around the Katanning area. In the UK it'd be same as being hung drawn and quarter with the Head put on spike outside the Tower. Other Nyungar words now used as place names in English describe other parts of Nyungar history and knowledge Gnangarra 09:01, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I totally get it. It’s the same in every language I’ve learnt as well. Noongar is not unique in this regard. I intend to get back to this when I get more time. Betterkeks (talk) 05:27, 1 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Nope. The proof of the pudding in the eating. If you can translate precisely what you just wrote, into Noongar, you are fluent in the Noongar esperanto. If you can't, but just endorse the glossing in English of a string of indigenous toponyms as does Gnangarra as 'evidence' the language lives, then all one gets is unverified claims and assertions that have no support in linguistics.Nishidani (talk) 08:18, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Varieties of the Noongar subgroup - language subgroup, countries, varieties
I've changed the image caption to refer to language varieties rather than countries, for consistency with the article text, which is about the language/dialects/varieties rather than the countries/nations. If we want to assert that language varieties correspond to separate countries/nations (eg per Indigenous Australians, "The [Australian Aboriginal] population was split into 250 individual nations") we should probably do so in the article text. Mitch Ames (talk) 08:39, 24 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I suggest a little learning might go a long way, every one of those regions are known as countries, the languages varieties you refer to are more because of the literacy backgrounds of westerners writing them down, be they English, French, German, Spanish or Latin or some combination of them. They dont actually reflect the boundaries of how things are pronounced Gnangarra 09:20, 24 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I would advocate a middle ground here. As best I can tell, the map is an attempt to represent boundaries of people groups, which may correlate to linguistic distinctions, but are equally (if not more) likely to be socio-ethno-cultural-et cetera distinctions. But since language is the context in which it's used, I say the caption should say something like, "A map of Noongar groups, roughly corresponding to varieties of the Noongar language". That said, I haven't gone with "countries" as you do, Gnangarra, not so much to avoid the issue Mitch raises as because I can't recall "country" in a Noongar context ever being pluralised. "Nations" is certainly used (particularly in increasingly popular terms like "First Nations"), but not "countries". Although I'll gladly point out that my experience is limited and local, and perhaps most importantly that I'm not Aboriginal myself! -- Perey (talk) 11:29, 24 September 2022 (UTC)
 * All the maps refer what is country ie Yeut country, Whadjuk Country, Menang Country not language usages, the language spoken doesn't so much vary between each country but by the person who recorded them. The bigger variant are in the outer regions where they share words with non-nyungar regions that overlapped in both. Tinsdale has lot to answer for with his use of solid lines to define regions when they were always fluid at the edges with neighbours having equal use, and different story lines. This why I refer to it country over language because those solid line dont represent language use in any viable way. At least this map is way more acceptable than the other that was in use. Gnangarra 13:49, 24 September 2022 (UTC)
 * — If that is the case, the article text should (also) be updated to say so explicitly. (Currently the article text says "The subdivisions shown [on the map] correspond to individual varieties".) If we are going to include a map that does not represent language use in any viable way, in an article about the language, it would probably be a good idea if any corresponding article text (that explicitly refers to the map) accurately explained to the reader the correlation between image and article topic. Mitch Ames (talk) 02:13, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

McCabe PhD in the Noongar language
The article currently says that "In 2012 Tim McCabe finished a PhD in the Noongar language", but the metadata/full record for the ref says "dc.language en" (not, for example "nys"). The full text of the thesis is not available, so I can't check, but there's nothing that I can see in the summary or abstract that says it is written in Noongar. (Other than that the title Baalaa Kaarl Killelbirriny is presumably Noongar - but not the subtitle, a study of the cultural landscapes of the Noongar Cliff Humphries.) Is there a reference somewhere that actually says the body of the thesis is written in Noongar? Mitch Ames (talk) 03:28, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure that changing it to "on the Noongar language" is correct either. Neither the thesis title nor abstract mentions "language" at all. Perhaps, who originally added the statement, could shed some light on the matter. Mitch Ames (talk) 00:01, 12 July 2023 (UTC)


 * After reading the abstract I'd say that the thesis is definitely on the Noongar language.
 * "'This thesis demonstrates how colonial cartography and its legacy of blank-spaces is privileged over Noongar place naming and the continuity of localised Noongar song and story traditions. The contribution of this study is in showing how Noongar space can be re-engaged and reinterpreted, revealing lands of nourishment and lands possessing a lingua franca beyond a colonial logic and straight lines.'"
 * I guess we can check if it is in Noongar or not when it is made available in 2028 lol.
 * FropFrop (talk) 06:47, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The abstract mentions place names, songs and stories, but that's not the same thing as "language". Perhaps we should change the article from "on Noongar language" to "on Noongar place names, songs and stories", which more closely matches what the abstract says. Mitch Ames (talk) 12:47, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @Mitch Ames They would have been recorded in Noongar. Additionally, songs and storylines are core cultural components of the Noongar language; it's not unusual for a paper to not simply cover the grammatical structure but, for example, to also look at how the language is used. So I don't think changing the article name is advisable. FropFrop (talk) 13:19, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
 * - That may be the case, but the abstract does not mention it, which means (without access to the full thesis) it is WP:SYN to assert that a paper about "cartography, Noongar place naming, Noongar song and story traditions" is about the Noongar language.
 * — That does not mean that paper is about the language.
 * — I'm not proposing changing the article name; I'm proposing changing one sentence in the article:
 * so that it more accurately reflects the thesis abstract. Mitch Ames (talk) 11:47, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @Mitch Ames
 * I see, apologies about that confusion. I think that change is fine, and I also think keeping it as 'language' is fine. So no issues with me either way. FropFrop (talk) 23:27, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
 * ✅ Mitch Ames (talk) 05:13, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * ✅ Mitch Ames (talk) 05:13, 15 March 2024 (UTC)