Wageman

Wageman is a language isolate spoken in Australia. Glottolog rates it moribund.

Wageman · 13.9°S 131.9°E

An isolate: no relationship to any other known language has been demonstrated.

Wagiman, also spelt Wageman, Wakiman, Wogeman, and other variants, is a near-extinct Aboriginal Australian language spoken by only two elderly people, who live in and around Pine Creek, in the Katherine Region of the Northern Territory. The two last speakers, who acquired Wagiman as their first language, are sister and brother in their 70s, named Teresa Muyiwey Bandison and George Jabarlgarri Huddlestone..

The Wagiman language is notable within linguistics for its complex system of verbal morphology, which remains under-investigated, its possession of a cross-linguistically rare part of speech called a coverb, its complex predicates and for its ability to derive verbs from coverb roots, which is a unique feature among Australian languages.

As of 1999 Wagiman was expected to become extinct within the next generation, as the youngest generation spoke no Wagiman and understood very little. The 2011 Australian census recorded 30 speakers, while the 2016 Australian census recorded 18 speakers. Linguist Daniel Krauße worked on the language from 2019 to 2021 and reported only two remaining speakers. Without urgent language revival programs, the language is expected to become extinct very soon.

From Wikipedia · Wagiman language · CC BY-SA 4.0

Words in Wageman

Meaning	Word	Romanization
person	lagiban*
name	lawar*
eye	nibul*
ear	dalmEdal*
nose	gidutdal*
tooth	nimudal*
tongue	Ta5Nadal*
hand	nadal*
blood	labulbul*
bone	gubiTi*
skin	gumit*
knee	bondEdi*
breast	Napbu5*
liver	lamElEm*
water	wahan
fire	guda*
sun	Nurun*
star	gariNal*
stone	gara*
mountain	gubam*
tree	wir*
leaf	marak*
night	laNiC*
dog	lamara*
fish	maTal*
louse	dulgan*
one	nuNarin*
two	larima*
I	Nagun*
you	Nogo*