The Noongar (/ˈnʊŋɑːr/, also spelt Noongah, Nyungar /ˈnjʊŋɑːr/, Nyoongar, Nyoongah, Nyungah, Nyugah, and Yunga /ˈjʊŋɑː/) are Aboriginal Australian peoples who live in the south-west corner of Western Australia, from Geraldton on the west coast to Esperance on the south coast. There are 14 different Noongar groups: Amangu, Ballardong, Yued, Kaneang, Koreng, Mineng, Njakinjaki, Njunga, Pibelmen, Pindjarup, Wadandi, Whadjuk, Wiilman and Wudjari. The Noongar people refer to their land as Noongar boodja. The members of the collective Noongar cultural block descend from peoples who spoke several languages and dialects that were often mutually intelligible.[citation needed] What is now classed as the Noongar language is a member of the large Pama-Nyungan language family. Contemporary Noongar speak Australian Aboriginal English (a dialect of the English language) laced with Noongar words and occasionally inflected by its grammar. Most contemporary Noongar trace their ancestry to one or more of these groups. In the 2001 Australian census, 21,000 persons identified as indigenous in the south-west of Western Australia. From Wikipedia
