Gurr-goni (N75) is a non-Pama Nyungan language from north central Arnhem Land. There are three Gurr-goni clans, two from the Yirrtjinga moiety, An-dirrdjalaba and Boburerre and one from the Djowunga moiety, Gurlumarrarra. There are two dialects (distinguished by vocabulary) in Gurr-goni, one spoken by An-dirrdjalaba and Boburerre and one by Gurlumarrarra ... Language and personal identity is affiliated with father's language ... (Green and Nimbadja, 2015:1-2).
Based on a comparison of verb tense/status suffixes, Green classifies Burarra N82, Gurr-goni (N75), Ndjebbana N74 and Nakkara N80 as a 'Maningrida subgroup' of the larger Gunwinjguan language family, a refinement of the earlier classification of Gurr-goni as a member of the 'Bureran' family (Capell, Voegelin and Voegelin in Green, 1995:4-5).
Glasgow describes Gurrgoni or Gun-gurrgoni (N75) as a dialect of the Burarra N82 Language Family (1994:7).
Eastern side of Tonkinson River (Glasgow 1994 Burarra-Gun-nartpa dictionary ) traditional territory - inland from and south of the settlement of Maningrida. Its western border lies along the Tomkinson River. To the north, bordered by Ndjebbana country and Nakkara. In the east, it meets Burarra country just short of the Bitjuwu/Binyjawa swamp, and the Gurr-goni/Burarra border runs south roughly in line with the Cadell River. To the south lie the lands of the Kuninjku speaking Kardbam clan (Green 1995:3-4). The general association was to the floodplain of the Tomkinson River from just behind the coast, but not as far south as the road to Oenpelli, and to the higher country eastwards to the western side of the Cadell River (Harvey ASEDA 802).
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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).
Green, Rebecca. 1995. A grammar of Gurr-goni (North Central Arnhem Land), Australian National University: PhD.
Coleman, Carolyn. Comparative wordlists in Top End Languages, ASEDA 0632.
