Umbuygamu

Abstract

Umbuygamu is a Pama-Nyungan language of the east coast of Cape York Peninsula, in the northeast of Australia. Genetically, the language belongs to the Lamalamic subgroup (Laycock 1969, Rigsby 1997) of Paman languages, themselves a subgroup of Pama-Nyungan (as proposed by Hale 1964, 1966; see also Bowern & Atkinson 2012). Umbuygamu is the language of three clans at the southern end of Princess Charlotte Bay, about halfway up the east coast of Cape York Peninsula. Their estates are centred on a lagoon called Emanha (or Dinner Hole in English); they extend inland into the upper Running Creek system, and include the Cliff Islands group along the coast; see Rigsby 1992 for more details, and Verstraete & Rigsby (2015: 2) for a map of the region and its languages. Neighbouring languages are the Middle Paman language Umpithamu, along the coast to the north (see, for instance, Verstraete 2010, 2012) and two Lamalamic languages, Rimanggudinhma to the southwest (located inland; Godman 1993, Sommer 1999b), and Lamalama to the southeast (along the coast; Sommer 1999a).