Wagiman language
Wagiman, also spelt Wageman, Wakiman, Wogeman, and other variants, is a near-extinct Aboriginal Australian language spoken by a small number of Wagiman people in and around Pine Creek, in the Katherine Region of the Northern Territory.
| Wagiman | |
|---|---|
| Wageman | |
| Region | Pine Creek, Northern Territory, Australia |
| Ethnicity | Wagiman |
Native speakers | 11 (2005) |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | waq |
| Glottolog | wage1238 |
| AIATSIS | N27 |
| ELP | Wagiman |
Wagiman (purple), among other non-Pama-Nyungan languages (grey) | |
The Wagiman language is notable within linguistics for its complex system of verbal morphology, which remains under-investigated, its possession of a cross-linguistically rare part of speech called a coverb, its complex predicates and for its ability to productively verbalise coverbs.
As of 1999 Wagiman was expected to become extinct within the next generation, as the youngest generation spoke no Wagiman and understood very little. The 2011 Australian census recorded 30 speakers, while the 2016 Australian census recorded 18 speakers.