Wik Mungkan Dictionary

A dictionary of the Wik-Mungkan language from far north Queensland, Australia

The Wik-Mungkan language (Ethnologue/ISO code: wim) is spoken on the western side of Cape York Peninsula of Queensland. The majority of the Wik-Mungkan people today live at Aurukun. Wik-Mungkan is spoken by about 1000 people, either as a first or second language.

In 1962, Marie Godfrey and Barbara Sayers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) started linguistic and translation work in the Wik-Munkan language in Aurukun. They began a dictionary file, and added to it over several years. Their work was continued and expanded by other SIL members, namely, Christine Kilham and Ann Eckert and was eventually published by SIL/AAB as the Dictionary and source book of the Wik-Mungkan language (Kilham. C, 1986).

This interactive version is based on the printed dictionary and has not been changed or updated, other than to add semantic categories to assist electronic searches.