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Umbugarla
Mbukarla
Native to	Australia
Region	Northern Territory
Extinct	ca. 2000; with the death of Butcher Knight
Language family	Darwin Umbugarlic Umbugarla
Language codes
ISO 639-3	umr
Glottolog	umbu1235
AIATSIS	N43
ELP	Umbugarla
historic distribution of Umbugarla

Umbugarla or Mbukarla is a possible Australian language isolate once spoken by three people in Arnhem Land, northern Australia as of 1981, and is now extinct.

Phonology

Consonants

• /ɡ/ can be heard as either stops [k] or [ʔ] when in word-final or word-medial position, and as a fricative [ɣ] when in intervocalic position.
• /ɽ/ can also be heard as an alveolar tap [ɾ] when in intervocalic position.

Vowels

• Vowels can be lengthened when in open syllables or in word-final position.

Classification

Umbugarla was once considered a language isolate (together with Ngurmbur as a dialect), but Mark Harvey has made a case for it being part of a family of Darwin Region languages.

References

1. N43 Umbugarla at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
2. Davies, Jennifer (1989). Umbugarla: A Sketch Grammar. University of Melbourne.
3. Bowern, Claire. 2011. "How Many Languages Were Spoken in Australia?", Anggarrgoon: Australian languages on the web, December 23, 2011 (corrected February 6, 2012)

External links

• Umbugarla Swadesh list at the Internet Archive

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• Darwin Region languages
• Extinct languages of the Northern Territory
• Language isolates of Australia
• Indigenous Australian language stubs