Amurdag language

Amurdag
Region Oenpelli, Goulburn Island, Northern Territory
Native speakers
1 (2007)[1]
Iwaidjan
  • Amurdag
Dialects
Urrirk
Gidjurra
Language codes
ISO 639-3 amg
Glottolog amar1271[2]
AIATSIS[3] N47

Amurdag (also Amurdak, Amurag, Amarag, Wureidbug) is an Indigenous Australian language historically spoken in the Northern Territory of Australia. According to a report by the National Geographic Society and the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages, it is an endangered language. There is at least one living speaker, Charlie Mungulda, who has been working with Australian linguists, e.g. Nick Evans, Robert Handelsmann and others, over the past several decades to record his language.[4] The Amurdag language was featured in Language Matters with Bob Holman, a 2015 PBS documentary about endangered languages.[5]

Phonology

Consonants

Peripheral Laminal Apical
Bilabial Velar Palatal Alveolar Retroflex
Plosive p k c t ʈ
Nasal m ŋ ɲ n ɳ
Approximant w ɣ j ɻ
Trill r
Flap ɽ
Lateral (ʎ) l ɭ
Lateral flap ɺ ld rld

Evans but not Mailhammer identifies a palatal lateral /ʎ/ in Amurdag.

Vowels

Mailhammer (2009) does not provide a vowel inventory but Evans (1998) briefly discusses vowels in his paper, noting that Iwaidjan languages including Amurdak have a three vowel (/a/, /i/, /u/) system.

Further reading

References

  1. Amurdag at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Amurdak". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
  3. Amurdag at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
  4. Scientists: Many World Languages Are Dying, Associated Press via Fox News, 2007-09-18. Accessed 2007-09-19.
  5. Language Matters with Bob Holman: A film by David Grubin, PBS, 2015-01-19. Accessed 2015-01-28.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Friday, March 11, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.