Mbarrumbathama (Lamalama)

Abstract

Mbarrumbathama is a clan-named variety of Lamalama, a language of Cape York Peninsula, in the northeast of Australia. Together with Umbuygamu (Ogilvie 1994, Sommer 1998, Verstraete 2017) and Rimanggudinhma (Godman 1993), Lamalama forms the Lamalamic subgroup of Paman languages (Laycock 1969, Rigsby 1997, Verstraete 2018), themselves a subgroup of Pama-Nyungan (Hale 1964, 1966; see also Bowern & Atkinson 2012). The language is no longer spoken, but it is traditionally associated with about 20 clans (as reconstructed by Rigsby 1999, 2014) belonging to the southern shores of Princess Charlotte Bay, on the east coast of Cape York Peninsula (see Figure 1). The clans’ estates are mainly coastal, extending from the Normanby River mouth in the east to about 10 km west of the North Kennedy River mouth, but they also include some inland estates (see Rigsby 1992: 356).