There is no overt evidence of Ngurunta as a language name. Hercus and Austin (2004:210) say that the area identified as belonging to Ngurunta by Tindale (1974) is mainly inhospitable and was generally regarded as belonging to Yardliyawara L7. Further, the two word lists that Tindale attributes to Ngurunta (Anonymous 'no. 70' and Reid in Curr 1886-87) are identified as Paakantyi D12 by Curr and also by Beckett (1958).
Wafer and Lissarrague (2008:290) treat Ngurunta as a 'hypothetical' dialect of Yardliyawarra L7 on the basis of its location and the information provided in Hercus and Austin (2004:210).
Tindale (1974) says he included Ngurunta in Maljangapa L8 in his earlier work but he lists it separately in his 1974 work. He says that their survivors resided with Maljanjapa in post-European times. The Mobile Language Team web site refers to the Ngurunta language as being closely related to Malyangapa but there is no separate Ngurunta page.
Area from west of Barrier and Coko ranges to eastern shore of Lake Frome; south to about midwaters of Eurinilla Creek; north to about Boolka Lake and vicinity of Yandama Creek (Tindale 1974).
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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).
