| Also Known As: Wagiman,Wogeman
Description:
Wagiman (also spelled Wageman, Wakiman, Wogeman) is a near-extinct indigenous Australian language spoken by fewer than 10 people in and around Pine Creek, in the Katherine Region of the Northern Territory.
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 productively verbalise coverbs.
Wagiman is expected to become extinct within the first half of the century, as the youngest generation of Wagiman people speak no Wagiman at all, and understand very little.
Wagiman is a member of the Gunwinyguan family of languages, a family that stretches from Arnhem Land, throughout Kakadu National Park and South to Katherine and beyond. Within this family, Wagiman is most closely related to three languages, Wardaman, Yangman and Dagoman, though there is considerable debate about the status of Wagiman within the Gunwinyguan family. Of these three other languages, only Wardaman is still spoken.
Wagiman is the ancestral language of the Wagiman people, an ethnic group of Australian Aborigines whose..... full article at Wikipedia |
