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Yarli language

Australian Language Families

Yarli, also spelled Yardli, was a small Pama-Nyungan dialect cluster of Australia comprising three closely related varieties, Malyangapa, Yardliyawara and Wadikali, historically spoken by their namesake peoples along with the Karenggapa in the region where northwestern New South Wales meets northeastern South Australia. Linguists Luise Hercus and Peter Austin classified the three as a distinct Yarli branch of Pama-Nyungan, though the degree of difference between them has been debated, with some scholars treating them as dialects of a single language rather than three separate ones. The cluster is effectively extinct: the Malyangapa variety lost its last fluent speaker with the death of Laurie Quayle in 1976, and only a couple of speakers of the group as a whole were recorded as late as 1987.

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