Yanggal


The Yanggal are an indigenous Australian people of area of the Gulf of Carpentaria in the state of Queensland.

Language

The Yanggal language was called Yanggaralda,. Geoffrey O'Grady grouped it as a variety of Yukulta within the Tangkic language family. The implication was that 'Yanggal' was simply an alternative name for 'Njangga', which is an alternate ethnonym for the Yanyula, from which it has been thought, the Yanggal may have derived.

Country

The Yanggal work over of land, both on Forsyth Island and the stretch of coastline opposite, on the mainland, running as far west as Cliffdale Creek mainland opposite.
Much of the continental coastland used by the Yanggal was mangrovial.

Social organization

The Yanggal were composed of at least three hordes:
The Yanggal eventually moved to Mornington Island, where Arthur Capell briefly interviewed one informant, and obtained information, some of which turned out to be unreliable. He was told that their name for their homeland on Forsyth Island was Nemi from which he deduced that their language was Nemarang.. This misapprehension was corrected by Tindale who explained that this term was the personal name of a Yanggal known on a mission as Edward Nemie, the latter being a distortion of the missionary's word 'name'.

Alternative names