Warrongo (or War(r)ungu) is an Australian Aboriginal language, one of the dozen languages of the Maric branch of the Pama–Nyungan family. It was formerly spoken by the Warrongo people in the area around Townsville, Queensland, Australia. Its last native speaker was Alf Palmer, who died in 1981. Before his death, linguists Tasaku Tsunoda and Peter Sutton worked together with Palmer to preserve the language (Warrungu proper); thanks to their efforts, the language is beginning to be revived. One of the notable feature of the language is its syntactic ergativity. As noted by Ethnologue, the language is currently dormant meaning that there are no native/proficient speakers left. Alternative names for the language include Warrangu, Warrango, War(r)uŋu, War-oong-oo, Gudjala and Gudjal. The Warungu language region includes areas from the Upper Herbert River to Mount Garnet. Sociolinguistic situation Nowadays people identifying themselves as Warrongo live both within traditional Warrongo territory (Mount Garnet) and outside it (Palm Island, Townsville, Ingham, Cardwell, and Cairns). The language has been extinct since the last speaker, Alf Palmer, died in 1981. In the late 1990s or early 2000s a language revival movement started by a community of people, most of them grandchildren of the last speakers, the central figure being the granddaughter of Alf Palmer. The community had contacted Tsunoda, the linguist who worked with the last speakers in the 1970s, and between 2002 and 2006 he conducted 5 sessions of lessons, of 4–5 days each. As a result, the language seems to have acquired a limited set of symbolic functions. It has begun to be used in teasing between children, and as a source of personal names. Classification There appear to have been at least two mutually intelligible dialects. Warrongo belongs to the Pama-Nyungan (macro)family. The most closely related languages are Gugu Badhun (90% lexical sharing in terms of Hale's 99-item vocabulary) and Gujal (94% lexical sharing). The intermediate level classification of this group seems uncertain: the evidence from phonological correspondences, pronouns and verb roots suggests it belongs to the Maric group (alongside Bidjara, Gungabula, Marganj, Gunja, Biri and Nyaygungu), while the verbal inflectional morphology is akin to that of the Hebert River group (which includes Dyirbal, Warrgamay, Nyawaygi and Manbarra). It has been suggested that the verbal inflectional suffixes might have been the result of massive borrowing. Phonology Consonants Only in Gugu-Badhun. The sound appears only in the interjection 'Hi!' and the exclamation of surprise (or