Darkinjung language
| Darginjüng | |
|---|---|
| Hawkesbury–MacDonald River | |
| Region | New South Wales, Australia |
| Ethnicity | Darkinjung people |
| Extinct | (date missing) |
| Revival | A small number of second-language users in revival program |
|
Pama–Nyungan
| |
| Dialects |
Darrkinyung
Hawkesbury River–Broken Bay?
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 |
xda |
| Glottolog |
hawk1239[1] |
| AIATSIS[2] |
S65 |
Darkinjung (Darrkinyung; many other spellings; see below) is an Australian Aboriginal language, the traditional language of the Darkinjung people. While no audio recordings of the language survive, several researchers have compiled wordlists and grammatical descriptions. It has been classified as a language no longer fully spoken[3] and it can be classified as needing a language renewal[4] program. It was spoken adjacent to Dharuk, Wiradhuri, Guringai Language and Awabakal.
Name
The name of the language has various spellings:
- Darkinjang (Tindale 1974)
- Darkinjung
- Darkiñung (Mathews 1903)
- Darrkinyung
- Darginjang
- Darginyung
- Darkinung
- Darkinoong
- Darknüng
- Darkinyung
Revitalisation effort
Since 2003 there has been a movement from the Darkinyung language group to revitalise the language. They started working with the original field reports of Robert H. Mathews and W. J. Enright. Where there were gaps in the sparsely populated wordlists, words were taken from lexically similar nearby languages. This led to the publication of the work Darkinyung grammar and dictionary: revitalising a language from historical sources.[5] This may be ordered from the publisher, Muurrbay Language Centre at http://www.muurrbay.org.au/muurrbay-resources/
Phonology
Much of our understanding of Darkinjung comes from papers published by R.H. Mathews in 1903. When analyzing these sources, we may generalize that there were around 15 consonants phonemes, and no less than 3 vowels.[5]
Consonants
| Bilabial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oral Stop | b | d̪ | d | ɟ | g |
| Nasal | m | n̪ | n | ɲ | ŋ |
| Trill | r | ||||
| Approximant | w | ɹ | j | ||
| Lateral Approximant | l |
In Darkinjung, like many Australian languages, b, d, and g are interchangable with p, t, and k and will not change the meaning of the word. The fact that this table shows b, d, and g is arbitrary.
Vowels
| Front Unrounded | Central Unrounded | Back Rounded | |
| High | ɪ | ʊ | |
| Low | ɐ |
References
- ↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Hawkesbury". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
- ↑ Darginjüng at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
- ↑ National Indigenous Languages Survey Report 2005
- ↑ Australian Indigenous Languages Framework (Senior Secondary Assessment Board of South Australia, 1996)
- 1 2 Jones, Caroline (2008). Darkinyung grammar and dictionary: revitalising a language from historical sources. Nambucca Heads, Australia: Muurrbay Aboriginal Language and Culture Co-operative. ISBN 978-0-9775351-9-4.
Additional References
- R. H. Mathews (Jul–Dec 1903). "Languages of the Kamilaroi and Other Aboriginal Tribes of New South Wales". The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland) 33: 259–283. doi:10.2307/2842812. JSTOR 2842812.
External links
- Bibliography of Darkinjung people and language resources, at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
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