Lower Burdekin languages

Lower Burdekin
(geographic)
Native toAustralia
RegionQueensland
EthnicityJuru, Bindal?
Extinctca. 1900
Pama–Nyungan
Dialects
  • Cunningham vocabulary
  • Gorton vocabulary
  • O'Connor vocabulary (Yuru)
Language codes
ISO 639-3xbb – inclusive code
Individual code:
ljx – Yuru
xbb
Glottologbind1234  Cunningham list
bind1235  Gorton list
bind1236  Mount Elliot (O'Connor) list
yuru1264  Yuru
AIATSIS[1]E62 Yuru
Lower Burdekin languages (green) among other Pama–Nyungan (tan)
The Burdekin River in 2005

The Lower Burdekin languages were probably three distinct Australian Aboriginal languages spoken around the mouth of the Burdekin River in north Queensland. One short wordlist in each was collected in the 19th century, and published in the second volume of The Australian Race in 1886. These languages have since gone extinct, with no more having been recorded. Due to the paucity of the available data, almost nothing of their grammatical structure is known.

The O'Connor language goes by the name Yuru, and may have been Dyirbalic;[2] others may have been Maric. However, Breen analysed two of the lists and concluded that they were different languages, neither Maric.[2] He presumes that one of them was Bindal.[3]

  1. ^ E62 Yuru at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
  2. ^ a b "E62: Yuru". Australian Indigenous Languages Database. Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. 26 July 2019. Retrieved 25 November 2020.
  3. ^ "E61: Bindal". Australian Indigenous Languages Database. Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. 26 July 2019. Retrieved 25 November 2020.