Yugambeh language
Yugambeh language
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Yugambeh language

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Yugambeh language

Yugambeh (or Mibanah, from Mibanah gulgun, lit. 'language of men' or 'sound of eagles'), also known as Tweed-Albert Bandjalang, is an Australian Aboriginal language spoken by the Yugambeh living in South-East Queensland between and within the Logan River basin and the Tweed River basin, bounded to the east by the Pacific Ocean (including South Stradbroke Island) and in the west by the Teviot Ranges and Teviot Brook basin.

Yugambeh is a dialect cluster of two mutually intelligible dialects, one of four such clusters of the Bandjalangic branch of the Pama–Nyungan language family.

In the Yugambeh language, the word yugambeh means an emphatic 'no', 'never' i.e. 'very much no' and is a common exonym for the people and their language. Speakers of the language use the word miban which means 'man', 'human', 'wedge-tailed eagle' and is the preferred endonym for the people; they call their language Mibanah meaning 'of man', 'of human', 'of eagle' (the -Nah suffix forming the genitive of the word miban).

Yugambeh may also be referred to as:

Yugambeh is spoken within the Logan, Albert, Coomera, Nerang, and Tweed River basins.

Linguists such as Margaret Sharpe, relying on the previous work of others like Terry Crowley, described the Yugambeh language as having potentially upwards of 7 dialects. Recent analysis has found errors in these original studies and when corrected for these errors, two mutually intelligible dialects can be found; a western (freshwater) variety and an eastern (saltwater) variety with minor vocabulary differences.

Some differences between the dialects as noted by linguist Shaun Davies:

The Yugambeh Museum in Beenleigh currently maintains a free dictionary app for the Yugambeh language, available on Android, iOS and a desktop version.

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