See also Wik Ngathanya Y56. Sutton treats Wik Ngathanya Y56 and Wik Ngathan as referring to the same language and uses Wik-Ngathan as the standard. According to Sutton (1995:iii), the different Wik-Ngathan-owning clans have slightly different dialects. One of these dialects, spoken by the coastal clan with an estate just north of Knox River was known as Wik-Iincheyn in the late 1970s and early 1980s. However, by the 1990s, the use of the name Wik-Iincheyn appears to have stopped, and the Knox River dialect is now known as Wik-Ngathan.
This language belongs to a genetic language family (shared origins) which includes: Wik-Mungkan Y57; Wik-Iiyanh Y177 and Y172; Wik-Ngatharr Y51; Wik-Ep Y52; Wik-Me'anh Y53; Wik-Keyangan Y173; Mungkanho; Kugu-Uwanh Y176; Kugu Muminh Y43; Kugu-Ugbanh Y175 and Kugu-Mu'inh Y53 (Sutton, 1993:32).
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A documentation project funded by Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project is carried out from December 2006 to December 2009 (http://wwwling.arts.kuleuven.be/fll/hrelp/).
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).
Sutton, Peter. 1978. Appendix 1: The Wik-Ngathana language. In Sutton Wik: Aboriginal society, territory and language at Cape Keenweer, Cape York Peninsula, University of Queensland: PhD.
Sutton, Peter. 1995. Wik-Ngathan dictionary Adelaide. Adelaide:Caitlin Press.