The Iwaidjan or Yiwaidjan languages are a small family of non-Pama–Nyungan Australian Aboriginal languages

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...

 spoken in the Cobourg Peninsula

Cobourg Peninsula

The Cobourg Peninsula is located 350 kilometres east of Darwin in the Northern Territory, Australia. It is deeply indented with coves and bays, covers a land area of about 2,100 km², and is virtually uninhabited with a population ranging from about 20 to 30 in five family outstations, but...

 region of Western Arnhem Land

Arnhem Land

The Arnhem Land Region is one of the five regions of the Northern Territory of Australia. It is located in the north-eastern corner of the territory and is around 500 km from the territory capital Darwin. The region has an area of 97,000 km² which also covers the area of Kakadu National...

.

In 1997 Nicholas Evans

Nicholas Evans (linguist)

Nicholas Evans is an Australian-American linguist.Holding a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the Australian National University , he is Head and Professor at the School of Culture, History and Language at the College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University...

 proposed an Arnhem Land family

Arnhem Land languages

The Arnhem Land languages are a proposed Australian language family spoken over a large part of Arnhem Land in northern Australia. The languages within the group are distinctive and not mutually intelligible....

 that includes the Iwaidjan languages.

The Iwaidjan languages

Garig and Ilgar are two almost identical dialects. Manangkari may be a dialect of Maung.

Dixon (2002) considers Warrkbi demonstrated, but Iwaidjic (Warrkbi-Maung) and Iwaidjan to be speculative. He predicts that working out the histories of the languages will be a "profound challenge", regardless of whether they are a genealogical family or a language area.

Status

Iwaidja is spoken by about 150 people in the community of Minjilang on Croker Island

Croker Island

Croker Island is an island in the Arafura Sea off the coast of the Northern Territory, Australia, 200 km northeast of Darwin. It is separated from Cobourg Peninsula in the west by Bowen Strait, which is 2.5 km wide in the south and up to 7 km in the north, and 8.5 km long. In...

, alongside English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

, Kunwinjku and Maung. Maung is primarily spoken in the community of Warruwi on Goulburn Island, and it too has about 150 speakers. Both languages are still being learnt by children.

All the other Iwaidjan languages are close to extinction

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...

. , Amurdak had three remaining speakers, Garig and Ilgar three speakers between them, Marrgu one speaker, and Wurrugu one rememberer

Rememberer

In linguistics, a rememberer is a person who knows individual words or phrases of a dying or dead language, but cannot use the language productively. This is contrasted with fluent or full speakers, who have a good command of the language, and semi-speakers, who have a partial command of it....

.

Phonology

The Iwaidjan languages have similar phoneme

Phoneme

In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....

 inventories. Exceptions are noted below the tables.

Vowels

	Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also...	Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark...
High	i	u
Low	a

In addition to these, Maung also has /e/ and /o/, mostly in loanword

Loanword

A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...

s from Kunwinjku and Kunbarlang.

Consonants

	Bilabial Bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...	Apico Apical consonant An apical consonant is a phone produced by obstructing the air passage with the apex of the tongue . This contrasts with laminal consonants, which are produced by creating an obstruction with the blade of the tongue .This is not a very common distinction, and typically applied only to fricatives... - Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...	Apico Apical consonant An apical consonant is a phone produced by obstructing the air passage with the apex of the tongue . This contrasts with laminal consonants, which are produced by creating an obstruction with the blade of the tongue .This is not a very common distinction, and typically applied only to fricatives... - Retroflex Retroflex consonant A retroflex consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants, especially in Indology...	Lamino Laminal consonant A laminal consonant is a phone produced by obstructing the air passage with the blade of the tongue, which is the flat top front surface just behind the tip of the tongue on the top. This contrasts with apical consonants, which are produced by creating an obstruction with the tongue apex only... - Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...	Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....
Stop Stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...	b	d	ɖ	c	k
Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...	m	n	ɳ	ɲ	ŋ
Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no...	w		ɻ	j	ɰ
Tap			ɽ
Trill Trill consonant In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. Standard Spanish <rr> as in perro is an alveolar trill, while in Parisian French it is almost always uvular....		r
Lateral Lateral consonant A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth....  approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no...		l	ɭ	ʎ
Flapped Flap consonant In phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator is thrown against another.-Contrast with stops and trills:...  lateral Lateral consonant A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth....		ɺ	ɺ̡

To these Marrgu adds a lamino

Laminal consonant

A laminal consonant is a phone produced by obstructing the air passage with the blade of the tongue, which is the flat top front surface just behind the tip of the tongue on the top. This contrasts with apical consonants, which are produced by creating an obstruction with the tongue apex only...

-dental stop

Stop consonant

In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...

 and nasal

Nasal consonant

A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...

, /d̪ n̪/, while Maung lacks the two flapped

Flap consonant

In phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator is thrown against another.-Contrast with stops and trills:...

 laterals

Lateral consonant

A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth....

, which are quite unusual among Australian languages. Also unusual is the velar

Velar consonant

Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....

 approximant

Approximant consonant

Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no...

 /ɰ/, which is an areal feature shared with Tiwi

Tiwi language

Tiwi is an Australian Aboriginal language spoken on the Tiwi Islands, within sight of the coast of northern Australia. It is one of about 10% of Australian languages still being learned by children....

 and Kunbarlang.

Relationships with other languages

The vocabularies of all the Iwaidjan languages contain loanword

Loanword

A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...

s from Macassarese and Malay

Malay language

Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...

, both Malayo-Polynesian languages

Malayo-Polynesian languages

The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, with approximately 385.5 million speakers. These are widely dispersed throughout the island nations of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean, with a smaller number in continental Asia...

 from Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

. Iwaidja and Maung have also borrowed heavily from Kunwijku, another Australian language of the Gunwingguan family.

While the Iwaidjan languages share a number of features with other non-Pama–Nyungan language families, it is uncertain which they are closest related to. Ross has proposed that they form part of an Arnhem Land family

Arnhem Land languages

The Arnhem Land languages are a proposed Australian language family spoken over a large part of Arnhem Land in northern Australia. The languages within the group are distinctive and not mutually intelligible....

.