Nukunu language

Nukunu
Region South Australia
Ethnicity Nukunu
Extinct ca. 2000
Pama–Nyungan
Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3 nnv
Glottolog nugu1241[1]
AIATSIS[2] L4

Nukunu (or Nugunu; many other names: see below) is a moribund Australian Aboriginal language spoken by Nukunu people on Yorke Peninsula, South Australia.

Names

This language has been known by many names by neighboring tribes and Australianists, including:

Classification

Nukunu is a Pama–Nyungan language, closely related to neighboring languages in the Miru cluster[3] like Narungga, Kaurna, and Ngadjuri.

Phonology

Vowels

Nukunu has three different vowels with contrastive long and short lengths (a, i, u, a:, i:, u:).

Front Back
High i iː u uː
Low a aː

Consonants

The Nukunu consonantal inventory is typical for a Pama–Nyungan language, with six places of articulation for stops and nasals. There are three rhotics in the language.

Peripheral Laminal Apical
Labial Velar Dental Palatal Alveolar Retroflex
Stop Voiceless p k c t ʈ
Voiced (ɖ)
Nasal m ŋ ɲ n ɳ
Lateral ʎ l m
Tap ɾ
Trill ɲ
Approximant w j ɻ

A phonemic voicing contrast exists in Nukunu, but it has only been observed in the retroflex stop series. An example demonstrating such a contrast intervocalically is kurdi (phlegm, IPA ['kuɖi]) and kurti (quandong, IPA ['kuʈi]).

History

In contrast with other Thura–Yura languages, Nukunu did not partake in either the initial th- lenition before vowels or the lenition of initial k- before vowels.

Notes

  1. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Nugunu (Australia)". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
  2. Nukunu at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
  3. Hercus pp. 1; Schmidt called this cluster (a subgroup of Thura–Yura) as "Miru" in 1919. Perhaps these languages are part of the Kadli group as well.

References


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