Nimanburru is a non-Pama Nyungan language from north west Western Australia.
McGregor classifies Nimanburru as one of the Western Nyulnyulan languages, along with Bardi K15, Jawi K16, Jabirrjabirr K8, Ngumbarl K4 and Nyulnyul K13. He contrasts these with the Eastern Nyulnyulan languages, Nyikina K3, Warrwa K10, Yawuru K1 and Jukun K2 (2010:209).
Coast of King Sound from Repulse Point south to include swamp plain at mouth of Fraser River; inland to its sources (Tindale 1974).
... around Mount Clarkson and Disaster Bay (Stokes 1984:9).
The general associations were from Point Cunningham Peninsula to the divide between the Fraser and Logue Rivers. Northward limit: The southern side of the Point Cunningham Peninsula. Tindale does not include Goodenough Bay within Nimanburru country, instead assigning it to Nyulnyul. However, the materials from Nekes & Worms, and Bowern indicate that Goodenough Bay was associated with Nimanburru. In Mary Durack 'The rock and the sand' (1969:32), in the discussion of the first missionary work in the 1880s, there is the following statement "From the beginning of their association he and his boy Knife had been working together on a dictionary of the Bard tribe. The Nimanboor people of Goodenough Bay, however ... spoke a different tongue." Southward limit: Nyikina speakers reported Logue River as Nyikina. Nyikina speakers reported Nilli Bubbuca Well and Bulleura OC as the northernmost points of Nyikina country. Nyikina speakers reported Mt Clarkson as Nimanburru. Therefore sources in 2007 and older sources agree that the southern boundary of Nimanburru with Nyikina lay along the drainage divide between the Fraser River drainage - Nimanburru, and the Logue River drainage - Nyikina (Harvey AILEC 0802).
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McGregor, William. 1988 Handbook of Kimberley Languages. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. © Author.
AIATSIS gratefully acknowledge William McGregor for permission to use his material in AUSTLANG.
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).
