| Mirndi | |
|---|---|
| Mindi | |
| Geographic distribution | Victoria River and Barkly Tableland, Northern Territory |
| Linguistic classification | One of the world's primary language families |
| Subdivisions | |
| Language codes | |
| Glottolog | mirn1241 |
 Yirram
Barkly (Jingulu + Ngurlun)
other non-Pama–Nyungan families | |
The Mirndi or Mindi languages are an Australian language family spoken in the Northern Territory of Australia. The family consists of two sub-groups and an isolate branch: the Yirram languages, and the Ngurlun languages and Jingulu language some 200 km farther to the southeast, separated by the Ngumpin languages.[1][2] The primary difference between the two sub-groups is that while the Yirram languages are all prefixing like other non-Pama–Nyungan languages, the Ngurlun languages are all suffixing like most Pama–Nyungan languages.[3]
The name of the family is derived from the dual inclusive pronoun ('we', in the sense of 'you and I') which is shared by all the languages in the family in the form of either mind- or mirnd-.[1]
- ^ a b Schultze-Berndt 2000, p. 8
- ^ McConvell, Patrick (2009), "'Where the spear sticks up' – The variety of locatives in placenames in the Victoria River District, Northern Territory", in Koch, Harold; Hercus, Luise (eds.), Aboriginal Placenames: Naming and re-naming the Australian landscape, ANU E-Press, pp. 359–402, ISBN 978-1-921666-08-7
- ^ Green, Ian (1995). "The death of 'prefixing': contact induced typological change in northern Australia". Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. 21: 414–425. doi:10.3765/bls.v21i1.1419.