The Minkin language is an extinct

Extinct language

An extinct language is a language that no longer has any speakers., or that is no longer in current use. Extinct languages are sometimes contrasted with dead languages, which are still known and used in special contexts in written form, but not as ordinary spoken languages for everyday communication...

 Australian Aboriginal language

Australian Aboriginal languages

The Australian Aboriginal languages comprise several language families and isolates native to the Australian Aborigines of Australia and a few nearby islands, but by convention excluding the languages of Tasmania and the Torres Strait Islanders...

, perhaps a language isolate

Language isolate

A language isolate, in the absolute sense, is a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical relationship with other languages; that is, one that has not been demonstrated to descend from an ancestor common with any other language. They are in effect language families consisting of a single...

, of northern Australia. It was spoken in the area around Burketown

Burketown, Queensland

- Morning glory cloud :From the months of August to November, a rare meteorological phenomenon known as "Morning Glory" - long, tubular clouds, some up to 1000 km in length - is often observed in the skies above Burketown.....

, on the southern coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria

Gulf of Carpentaria

The Gulf of Carpentaria is a large, shallow sea enclosed on three sides by northern Australia and bounded on the north by the Arafura Sea...

, in an area that contains the headwaters of the Leichhardt River.

The classification of Minkin is uncertain, primarily due to a lack of data. It has been suggested that it may have been related to the Yiwaidjan

Yiwaidjan languages

The Iwaidjan or Yiwaidjan languages are a small family of non-Pama–Nyungan Australian Aboriginal languages spoken in the Cobourg Peninsula region of Western Arnhem Land....

 or Tankic

Tankic languages

The Tangkic languages form a small language family of Australian Aboriginal languages spoken in northern Australia.The Tangkic languages are Lardil and its special register Damin, Kayardild, and Yukulta...

 language families

Language family

A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term 'family' comes from the tree model of language origination in historical linguistics, which makes use of a metaphor comparing languages to people in a...

.