The Worrorran (Wororan) languages are a small family of Australian Aboriginal languages spoken in northern Western Australia.
The Worrorran languages fall into three dialect clusters:
Worrorran the Northern Worrorran group, known as Wunambal and related dialects the Eastern Worrorran group, known as Ngarinyin, Ungarinyin, and related dialects the Western Worrorran group, known as Worrorra, and related dialects
In addition, Gulunggulu is unattested but presumably a Worrorran lect.
Validity
There has been debate over whether the Worrorran languages are demonstrably related to one another, or constitute a geographical language group.
Dixon (2002) considers them to be language isolates with no demonstrable relationship other than that of a Sprachbund.
However, more recent literature differs from Dixon: Rumsey and McGregor (2009) demonstrate the cohesiveness of the family and its reconstructibility, and; Bowern (2011) accepts the Worroorran languages as a family.Bowern, Claire. 2011. "How Many Languages Were Spoken in Australia?", Anggarrgoon: Australian languages on the web, 23 December 2011 (corrected 6 February 2012)
Vocabulary Capell (1940) lists the following basic vocabulary items for the Worrorran languages:Capell, Arthur. 1940. The Classification of Languages in North and North-West Australia. Oceania 10(3): 241-272, 404-433.
{| class="wikitable sortable" ! English ! Ungarinyin !! Munumburu !! Woljamidi !! Unggumi !! Worora !! Wunambal (1) !! Wunambal (2) !! Gambre !! Bargu !! Gwiːni |- ! man | , || || || || || || || || || |- ! woman | , || || || || || || || || || |- ! head
! eye
! nose
! mouth
! tongue
! stomach | , || || || || || , || || , || || |- ! bone
! blood
! kangaroo
! opossum | , || || || || || , || , || , || || |- ! emu
! crow
! fly
! sun
! moon | , || || || || || , || || || || |- ! fire
! smoke
! water | || || || || || || || , || ||
References
Further reading Text may be copied from this source, which is available under an Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.