Limilngan

Limilngan, also called Limil or Manidja, was the language of the Limilngan people of the Top End, spoken in the Darwin hinterland around the Mary River on the western edge of the Kakadu country. When the first British colony in Australia was founded in 1788, its speakers shared the coastal plain south of Darwin with the neighbouring Wulna, whose language of the Adelaide River is its closest relative.

Limilngan and Wulna are placed in the Darwin Region family of non-Pama–Nyungan languages. Limilngan has a three-vowel sound system, and in local dreamtime tradition the creator being Imberombera chanted the language of each country as she walked south from the sea.