It seems Wirraayaraay has been confused with Wiriyaraay D28. The reference name for D28 is Wiriyaraay in the Thesaurus and ILDB. On the other hand, the reference name in Oates and Oates (1970:167), an older source, is Wiriwiri; they list Weraiari, Weri-ari, Wiraerai, Wirajarai, Wirraiarai and Wirri-Wirri as alternatives.
However, Weraiari D57 is treated as equivalent of Wirraayaraay (D65) by Wafer and Lissarrague (2008:216-221).
Tindale's Weraerai, Wiriwiri in Oates and Oates (1970:167) and Wiri-Wiri in Oates (1975:222) may refer to Wiriyaraay D28 , Wirraay-Wirraay D66 or Wirraayaraay.
Wafer and Lissarrague suggest that Wirraayaraay refers to a northern dialect of the Central NSW language including Wiradjuri D10 and Jeithi D58. The language name is constructued with the word for 'no' wirraay and Darling Tributaries comitative suffix -araay, indicating it is an exonym, used by northern neighbours (2008:222).
Nothing in AUSTLANG.
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Speaker numbers were measured differently across the censuses and various other sources listed in AUSTLANG. You are encouraged to refer to the sources.
Speaker numbers for ‘NILS 2004’ and ‘2005 estimate’ come from 'Table F.3: Numbers of speakers of Australian Indigenous languages (various surveys)' in 'Appendix F NILS endangerment and absolute number results' in McConvell, Marmion and McNicol 2005, pages 198-230 (PDF, 2.5MB).
