Garawa

Garawa, also called Leearrawa, is the language of the Garrwa people of the southern Gulf of Carpentaria country, whose lands ran from the McArthur River at Borroloola east across the Nicholson River into Queensland. When the first British colony in Australia was founded in 1788, the same wider region held the Ganggalida, or Yukulta, of the Gulf coast, the Mingin around Burketown and the Wakaya inland toward Tennant Creek.

Garawa had a heavy eastern dialect called Guninderri and a lighter western one, and with the neighbouring Waanyi it forms the small Garrwan family. Its place within the Pama–Nyungan family is disputed, for its grammar contains unusual forms found in few other Australian languages.