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| Enindhilyagwa | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Groote Eylandt in the Gulf of Carpentaria, Northern Territory, Australia | |
| Total speakers: | >1,000 | |
| Language family: | Language isolate | |
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | none | |
| ISO 639-2: | aus | |
| ISO 639-3: | aoi | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
Enindhilyagwa (several other names; see below) is an Australian language isolate spoken by the Warnindhilyagwa people on Groote Eylandt in the Gulf of Carpentaria in northern Australia. A 2001 Australian government study identified more than one thousand speakers of the language, although there are reports of as many as three thousand. In 2008, it was cited in a study on whether humans had an innate ability to count without having words for numbers - which Enindhilyagwa does not have.1 2
Contents |
Names
Spellings of the name include:
- Andiljangwa
- Andilyaugwa
- Anindilyakwa (used by Ethnologue)
- Aninhdhilyagwa (used by R. M. W. Dixon's Australian Languages)
- Enindiljaugwa
- Enindhilyagwa
- Wanindilyaugwa
It also known as Groote Eylandt, after its location. Another name is Ingura or Yingguru.
Classification
Although sometimes grouped with the Gunwinyguan languages, Enindhilyagwa has not been shown to be related to other Australian languages, and recent attempts by Nicholas Evans at reducing the number of language families in Australia have left it as an isolate.
Phonology
Vowels
The analysis of Enindhilyagwa's vowels is open to interpretation. Stokes (1981) analyses it as having four phonemic vowels, /i e a u/. Leeding (1989) analyses it as having just two, /ɨ a/.
Consonants
| Peripheral | Laminal | Apical | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bilabial | Velar | Palatal | Dental | Alveolar | Retroflex | ||
| Unrounded | Rounded | ||||||
| Stop | p | k | kʷ | c | t̪ | t | ʈ |
| Nasal | m | ŋ | ŋʷ | ɲ | n̪ | n | ɳ |
| Lateral | ʎ | l̪ | (ɭ) | ||||
| Rhotic | r | ɻ | |||||
| Semivowel | w | j | |||||
Phonotactics
All Enindhilyagwa words end in a vowel. Clusters of up to three consonants can occur within words.
Grammar
Noun classes
Enindhilyagwa has five noun classes, or genders, each marked by a prefix:
- Human male
- Non-human male
- Female (human or non-human)
- Inanimate "lustrous", with the prefix a-.
- Inanimate "non-lustrous", with the prefix mwa-.
For bound pronouns, instead of "human male" and "non-human male" classes there is a single "male" class.
All native nouns carry a class prefix, but some loanwords may lack them.
Sources
- Leeding, V. J. (1989). Anindilyakwa phonology and morphology, University of Sydney.
- Leeding, V. J. (1996). "Body parts and possession in Anindilyakwa". in Chappell, H. and McGregor, W.. The grammar of inalienability: a typological perspective on body part terms and the part-whole relation. Berlin: Mounton de Gruyter. pp. 193-249.
- Stokes, J. (1981). "Anindilyakwa phonology from phoneme to syllable". in Waters, B.. Australian phonologies: collected papers. Darwin: Summer Institute of Linguistics, Australian Aborigines Branch. pp. 138–81.
References
- ^ No byline, "Aboriginal children 'can count without numbers'", Agence France Presse
- ^ The Science Show, Genetic anomaly could explain severe difficulty with arithmetic, Australian Broadcasting Corporation
External links
- State of Indigenous Languages in Australia (2001). Department of the Environment and Heritage.
- Ethnologue report for language code:aoi
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Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 30 September 2008, at 16:28.
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