Ngarnka is an extinct

Language death

In linguistics, language death is a process that affects speech communities where the level of linguistic competence that speakers possess of a given language variety is decreased, eventually resulting in no native and/or fluent speakers of the variety...

 Australian 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...

 which was spoken in the Barkly Tableland of Northern Australia

Northern Australia

The term northern Australia is generally known to include two State and Territories, being Queensland and the Northern Territory . The part of Western Australia north of latitude 26° south—a definition widely used in law and State government policy—is also usually included...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, close to the township of Elliot

Elliott District Community Government Council

The Elliott District Community Government Council was a Local Government Area of the Northern Territory, Australia. It was centred around the town of Elliott, 254 km north of Tennant Creek and 419 km south of Katherineon the Stuart Highway. The Community Government Council covered an area...

. According to the Australian

Australian people

Australian people, or simply Australians, are the citizens of Australia. Australia is a multi-ethnic nation, and therefore the term "Australian" is not a racial identifier. Aside from the Indigenous Australian population, nearly all Australians or their ancestors immigrated within the past 230 years...

 linguist Robert J. Pensalfini, the last fluent speaker of the language died between 1997 and 1998.

During history, the Ngarnka language has often been mistaken for the Wambaya language

Wambaya language

Wambaya is an Australian language which had 12 speakers in 1981, but which is believed to be extinct today. It was spoken in the Barkly Tableland of the Northern Territory, Australia....

, but the linguist Neil Chadwick proved during the 1970s that they are two distinct languages.