[1][2] The Ngarluma on contact with whites and distant tribes appeared to have reserved their grammatically complex language for conversations among themselves while adopting a simplified version when interacting with strangers.
[3] It would appear that the Ngarluma adapted quickly to the developing pearling industry along the northwest coast, perhaps travelling down to get work at Cossack 300 miles south.
This hypothesis is based on the fact that the vocabulary list provided to a priest in 1875 by two Dalmatian Italian shipwreck survivors, Michele Bacich and Giovanni Iurich, after they returned to Italy, appears to be a creole with a strong but simplified component of Ngarluma.
The data, and theorization of some such contact, was gathered and advanced by Carl Georg von Brandenstein, who hypothesized that there must have been a secret Portuguese colony established in the area around the 1520s, which lasted for 60 years.
[7] Under the agreement, Ngarluma people remain the traditional owner representatives for the North West Shelf Project area, which includes the Karratha Gas Plant.