Lardil language

Lardil
Leerdil
Pronunciation	[leːɖɪl]
Region	Bentinck Island, north west Mornington Island, Queensland
Native speakers	10 (2005) to 50 (2006 census)
Language family	Macro-Pama–Nyungan Tangkic Lardil
Dialects	Damin
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Glottolog	lard1243
AIATSIS	G38
Location of Wellesley Islands, the area traditionally associated with Lardil

Lardil (also spelled Leerdil or Leertil) is a moribund language spoken by the Lardil people on Mornington Island (Kunhanha), in the Wellesley Islands of Queensland in northern Australia. Lardil is unusual among Australian languages in that it features a ceremonial register, called Damin (also Demiin). Damin is regarded by Lardil speakers as a separate language, and possesses the only phonological system outside Africa to use click consonants.

Lardil is a member of the Tangkic family of Non-Pama–Nyungan Australian languages, along with Kayardild and Yukulta, which are close enough to be mutually intelligible. Though Lardil is not mutually intelligible with either of these, it is likely that many Lardil speakers were historically bilingual in Yangkaal (a close relative of Kayardild), since the Lardil people have long been in contact with the neighboring Yangkaal tribe and trading, marriage and conflict between them seem to have been common. There was also limited contact with mainland tribes including the Yanyuwa, of Borroloola; and the Garawa and Wanyi, which groups ranged as far east as Burketown. Members of the Kaiadilt tribe (i.e. speakers of Kayardild) also settled on nearby Bentinck Island in 1947.

The number of Lardil speakers has diminished dramatically since Kenneth Hale's study of the language in the late 1960s. Hale worked with a few dozen speakers of Lardil, some of these fluent older speakers, and others younger members of the community who had only a working or passive understanding. When Norvin Richards, a student of Hale's, returned to Mornington Island to continue work on Lardil in the 1990s, he found Lardil children had no understanding of the language and that only a handful of aging speakers remained; Richards has stated that "Lardil was deliberately destroyed" by assimilation and relocation programs in the years of the "Stolen Generation". A dictionary and grammatical sketch of the language were compiled and published by the Mornington Shire Council in 1997, and the Mornington Island State School has implemented a government-funded cultural education program incorporating the Lardil language. The last fluent speaker of so-called Old Lardil died in 2007, though a few speakers of a grammatically distinct New variety remain.