Our Language

Wunambal and Gaambera are Australian Aboriginal languages traditionally spoken by Wunambal and Gaambera people in the North Kimberley. Wunambal is spoken in the region between the Prince Regent River and the lower proportion of the King Edward River, and includes the Bonaparte Archipelago and the Mitchell Plateau. Wunambal and Gaambera are non-Pama-Nyungan languages belonging to the Wunambalic group of the Worrorran or North Kimberley language family.

NB. Recordings and images include people who are deceased. 

LEARNING LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGE RESOURCES

We have created Wunambal Gaambera language learning and teaching resources, including: PowerPoints with sound and pictures that can also be printed as picture books and a rough teachers’ guide or syllabus of a Wunambal Gaambera language course. 

Find out more about our language program and language resources, get in touch with us: media@wunambalgaambera.org.au

A lot of work has been done on typing up and translating old tapes of spoken Wunambal. Some old tapes recorded in the 1970s by Eric Vaszyoli are of Laurie Utemorrah and Collier Bengmoro.

WUnambal Gaambera Dictionary

In 2023, we put out our first Wunambal Gaambera dictionary, featuring sound and pictures; an English to Wunambal Gaambera wordlist; English subject wordlists; and an index of scientific names.

Just two years after we put out the first version of this dictionary, we now have a new version. This second version of the dictionary has more than three times the number of sound clips than the first version – more than a thousand! In the 2023 version of this dictionary, we put in 290 sounds of Laurie Utemorrah. In this version, we now have 330 sound clips of him. In this second version, we also put in a lot of sound from old Mickey Bungguni (685 clips).