Umpila language

Umpila
Northeastern Paman
Native to Australia
Region Cape York Peninsula, Queensland
Native speakers
12 (2005)[1]
Umpila Sign Language
Language codes
ISO 639-3 Variously:
kbe  Kanju
kuy  Kuuku-Ya'u
ump  Umpila
Glottolog nort2759[2]
AIATSIS[1] Y45 Umpila, Y211* Uutaalnganu, Y169* Kuuku Iyu

Umpila is an aboriginal Australian language, or dialect cluster, of the Cape York Peninsula. It is spoken by about 100 aborigines, many of them elderly.[3]

Geographic distribution

The land territory associated with the Umpila language group is located along the northeastern coast of Cape York Peninsula and stretches from the northern end of Temple Bay south to the Massey Creek region at the top of Princess Charlotte Bay, and west of the Great Dividing Range towards the township of Coen. Most of the remaining Umpila and Kuuku Ya'u speakers reside in Lockhart River Aboriginal Community, which is located at Lloyd Bay, roughly at the boundary between Umpila and Kuuku Ya'u lands.[4]

Varieties

The chief varieties of Umpila, variously considered dialects or distinct languages, are:

Grammar

Typologically, Umpila is agglutinative, suffixing, dependent-marking language, with a preference for Subject-Object-Verb constituent order. Grammatical relations are indicated by a split ergative case system: nominal inflections are ergative/absolutive, pronominals are nominative/accusative. Features of note include: historical dropping of initial consonants, complex verbal reduplication expressing progressivity and habitual aspect, 'optional' ergative marking.[5]

Sign language

The Umpila have (or had) a well-developed signed form of their language.[6]

Bibliography

References

  1. 1 2 Umpila at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies  (see the info box for additional links)
  2. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Northeastern Pama". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
  3. "Umpila". Retrieved 2015-08-04.
  4. "Umpila — Language and Cognition — Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics". www.mpi.nl. Retrieved 2015-08-04.
  5. "Umpila — Language and Cognition — Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics". www.mpi.nl. Retrieved 2015-08-04.
  6. Kendon, A. (1988) Sign Languages of Aboriginal Australia: Cultural, Semiotic and Communicative Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press


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