Yingkarta is a Pama Nyungan language with a suffixing, agglutinative strucrure and relatively free word order; it has six points of articulation including both laminal and apical contrasts. A lateral corresponds to each non-peripheral stop; there are two rhotics and two glides. Pronouns have singular, dual and plural forms; Yingkarta pronouns have distinct ergative, nominative and accusative forms, other nominals mark the agent with an ergative suffix, leaving subject of a intransitive clause and the object of a transitive clause unmarked. There are two conjugation classes, along with a small set of irregular verbs. Two dialects recorded distinguish a southern dialect from a northern dialect, but Dench says no distinct names for Yingkarta dialects were recorded. Their neigbours are Manthai W42, Maia W20, Payungu W23, Tharrkari W21 and Warriyangka W22 to the north, Malkana W18 in the south and Wajarri A39 in the east (Dench, 1998 5).
The WA Handbook and O'Grady et al. (1966) agree Yingkarta has a northern and a southern dialect.
Austin (1988) also says there are two varieties of Yingkarta, a northern and a southern. He mentions two Yingkarta group names, Manthi W42 and Thirrily W46, the locations of which appear to correspond to a north - south division, though he does not say that these group names are also the names of the dialects. Further, in his 1992 dictionary, Austin refers to the two dialects as Northern Yinggarda W42 and Southern Yinggarda W46.
Dench (1979) and O'Grady, Voegelin and Voegelin (1966) say the language has a northern and southern dialect; Austin identifies the dialects as Manthi and Thirrily.
Tindale locates Mandi (Manthi) at Carnarvon, on the lower Gascoyne River from Doorawarrah to the sea, south to near Grey Point, north only to the southern part of Boolathanna. Tindale locates Tedei (Thirrily) at the eastern coast of Shark Bay and valley of the Wooramal River from the coast north of Yarringa, north only to Pimbie, Carey Downs, and the south of Towrana (WA Handbook).
... the Yingkarta (Inggarda) territory is far too large and extends east of where it should be - the limit was Gascoyne Junction and the Lyons River (Austin in Sutton 1995:97).
The territory occupied by the Yingakarta people extended from the coast at the northern end of Shark Bay between the Gascoyne and Wooramel rivers, along the rivers inland to Red Hill and Gascoyne Junction (Dench 1998:5).
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Bundiyarra Aboriginal Community Aboriginal Corporation https://www.bundiyarra.com/irrawangga
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).
Dench, Alan. 1998 Yingkarta. München: Loncom Europa.
Austin, Peter. 1992. A dictionary of Yinggarda, Western Australia. Bundoora, VIC: La Trobe University.
