Magati Ke is a considered to be a dialect of Marri Ngarr N102 and they are closely related to Marri Amu N162/Marri Tjevin N161. Magati Ke are saltwater people, Marri Ngarr are freshwater people. Many Magati Ke and Marri Ngarr people now speak Murrinhpatha N3 and English (Nambatu et al., 2009:3-8).
Green & Nordlinger classify Menthe as a Western Daly non Pama-Nyungan language along with Marramaninjsji N16, Merranunggu N13, Emmi N15, Menthe N6, Marri Ngarr N102, Marrithiyel N7, Marri Tjevin N161, Marri Ammu N162, and Marri Dan N9 (viewed November 2020).
Harvey, Mark. 2008. Non-Pama-Nyungan Languages: land-language associations at colonisation. AILEC 0802.
Green, Ian & Nordlinger, Rachel. The Daly Languages (Australia). Web Resource http://dalylanguages.org
Tindale, Norman B. 1974. Aboriginal tribes of Australia: their terrain, environmental controls, distribution, limits, and proper names. Berkeley: University of California Press/Canberra: Australian National University Press.
A coastal strip on the north side of Port Keats including Tree Point; inland for 20 miles (30 km.) on south side of Moyle River swamplands (Tindale 1974). The general association was to the coast from Tree Point to the mouth of the Moyle and about 10-15kms inland (Harvey AILEC 802).
Magati Ke country lies on the coast, to the south of the mouth of the Moyle River. Its sister dialect, Marri Ngarr, is up river to its immediate east. On the other side of the Moyle, to the north, is the Brinkin dialect Marri Tjevin, and to the south is Murrinhpatha. The Magati Ke community is now based at Wadeye, with an outstation at Kuy, in their traditional country (Green & Nordlinger, viewed November 2020).
Search MURA people®
Search MURA language®
Search OZBIB
Search Trove
Search Worldcat
Wadeye Aboriginal Languages Centre
Batchelor Institute https://www.batchelor.edu.au/
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).
