Guniyandi language
| Gooniyandi | |
|---|---|
| Region | Western Australia |
Native speakers | 60 (2005) to 420 (2006 census)[1] |
|
Bunuban
| |
| Latin | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 |
gni |
| Glottolog |
goon1238[2] |
| AIATSIS[1] |
K6 |
Gooniyandi is an Australian Aboriginal language now spoken by about 100 people, most of whom live in or near Fitzroy Crossing in Western Australia. Gooniyandi is an endangered language as it is not being passed on to children, who instead grow up speaking Kriol.
Classification
Gooniyandi is closely related to Bunuba, to about the same degree as English is related to Dutch. The two are the only members of the Bunuban language family. Unlike the majority of Australian Aboriginal languages, Gooniyandi and Bunuba are non-Pama–Nyungan.
Writing system
A Gooniyandi alphabet based on the Latin script was adopted by the community in 1984, and subsequently revised in 1990 and again in 1999. It is not phonemic, as it omits some distinctions made in speech.
Grammar
Gooniyandi has no genders, but a large number of cases; it uses an ergative-absolutive case system. It is a verb-final language, but without a dominant order between the subject and the object.
References
- 1 2 Gooniyandi at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
- ↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Gooniyandi". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
- McGregor, William (1990). A Functional Grammar of Gooniyandi. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
- McGregor, William (1994). "Gooniyandi". In Nick Thieberger & William McGregor. Macquarie Aboriginal Words. The Macquarie Library. pp. 193–213.
- McGregor, William (2004). The Languages of the Kimberley, Western Australia. London, New York: Taylor & Francis.
- M Haspelmath, M S Dryer, D Gil, B Comrie (2005). The World Atlas of Language Structures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.