The Warrwa language and its speakers

Warrwa is a non-Pama-Nyungan Australian language, one of a small group of about ten languages referred to as the Nyulnyulan family (McGregor 1988). Its closest relatives are Nyikina, Yawuru and Jukun. These four languages together form the Eastern group of the family; the remaining five or six languages constitute the Western group (Stokes and McGregor 2003). The Western Nyulnyulan languages were traditionally located on the Dampier Land peninsula, to the north of Broome, in the far north-west of Western Australia. The Eastern Nyulnyulan languages were spoken in a crescent surrounding the peninsula to the south and east, extending into the Kimberley region. Warrwa itself was spoken in the north-eastern part of this crescent, in the vicinity of the present township of Derby (Burula), and eastwards along the Meda and May Rivers; see Figure 4.1. It abutted the Worrorran languages Unggarrangu and Unggumi, traditionally located to the north and east (see also maps in McGregor 1994: 6, and Tindale 1974: 259).

Today a single full speaker of Warrwa remains, aged around seventy, who lives in the township of Derby; she survives an elder brother, also a full speaker, who died in 2000. Her children (and possibly some grandchildren) have some passive knowledge of Warrwa, though they normally speak either Kriol or Aboriginal English.