multilingualism was the norm in pre-contact aboriginal australia, though one's primary group identity was formed by the specific tongue that inscribed the landscape where any group habitually controlled. marra is one of the three members of the marran language family, together with warndarrang and alawa, a typology established by stephen wurm in 1971. arthur capell included it as a new example of a semi-classifying language in 1942. it is notable for havings 8 conjugation classes, and a further 21 sub-conjugation classes for just twice that number of inflecting verbs.