Guwar is the language spoken by the Ngugi (E26) people of Moreton Island. It was previously understood to be an isolate; in 1888 Watkin compared it to the Yagara dialects of North Stradbroke Island and the Moreton Bay coastline, describing Gowar (E26) as 'very distinct'. Jefferies says that Guwar is a language of the Bandjalang E12 sub-group which has been heavily influenced by Yagara, due to the demographic relationships between the Ngugi and their Yagara speaking neighbours, the Guwanpul E19 and the Nunukul E21. The approximate percentages of Guwar lexicon that can be linked to Bundjalung and Yagara are 45% and 25% respectively (Jefferies, p.c. August 2020).
Bannister, DD. 1982 ‘The Aboriginal Language of Moreton Island’ John Oxley Library, Brisbane, Qld.
Capell, Arthur. 1963. Linguistic survey of Australia. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.
Watkin, G. and Hamilton, JE. 1886. 'Stradbroke and Moreton Islands: Goenpul, Wogee and Noonukul tribes'. No. 170 In Curr, E.M., 1887 The Australian Race Vol.3:222-230 Melbourne: Government Printer
Moreton Island (Tindale 1974, Oates 1975.)
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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).