The name Bundyil was used by Schmidt (1919, in Breen 1981) to identify a language family and by Holmer who used Bundjil as a language name, based on the word for 'man' in some language varieties in the Gulf Country North Queensland.

Holmer recorded 'Bundjil language' from a language consultant in Charters Towers, who 'thinks his language was probably Bundjil' and he 'thinks his language belongs to Cloncurry or the Flinders or Saxby Rivers area' (Holmer, 1988:105).

Sutton interviewed the same consultant in 1970. He describes the words in the consultant's repertoire including 'many "lingua franca" terms now known over a large area of N. Qld. Others are peculair to Mayigudun G24, Ngawun G17 or other languages of the "Mayipic Group"' (1970: 301-304).

The country nominated by the language consultant has a 'group of dialects comprising ... two mutually unintelligible but closely related languages and formerly spoken in a large part of the catchment area of the Flinders and Leichardt Rivers in the Gulf Country of Queensland. This group is commonly referred to as the Mayi languages, from 'mayi' meaning 'speech' or 'language' (Breen, 1981:2). This coincides with the country described in Holmer 'Cloncurry or the Flinders and Saxby rivers area' (1988:105).