Nukunu language

Nukunu
Region	South Australia
Ethnicity	Nukunu
Extinct	ca. 2000
Language family	Pama–Nyungan Thura-Yura (unclassified) Nukunu; ; ;
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	nnv
Glottolog	nugu1241
AIATSIS[1]	L4
ELP	Nukunu[2]

Nukunu (or Nugunu or many other names: see below) is a moribund Australian Aboriginal language spoken by Nukunu people on Yorke Peninsula, South Australia. As of 2017, there is a revival and maintenance programme under way for the language.[3]

Names

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

Nukuna, Nokunna, Noocoona, Nookoona, Nuguna, Nukana, Nukunnu, Nukunu, Njuguna
Doora
Pukunna
Tjura, Tyura
Wallaroo, Warra
Wongaidya (from wangkatya, present tense form of verb 'to speak')

Classification

Aboriginal languages of South Australia.

Nukunu is a Pama–Nyungan language, closely related to neighboring languages in the Miru cluster[4] 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	t̪	c	t	ʈ
Stop	Voiced						(ɖ)
Nasal		m	ŋ	n̪	ɲ	n	ɳ
Lateral				l̪	ʎ	l	ɭ
Tap						ɾ
Trill						r
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

L4 Nukunu at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
Endangered Languages Project data for Nukunu.
Monaghan, Paul (2017). "1. Structures of Aboriginal life at the time of colonisation in South Australia". In Brock, Peggy; Gara, Tom (eds.). Colonialism and its aftermath: A history of Aboriginal South Australia (PDF). Extract, pp.i-xxiii. Wakefield. p. 17. ISBN 9781743054994.
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

Hercus, Luise Anna (1992). "Introduction". A Nukunu Dictionary. Maitland, South Australia: National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry.

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[AIATSIS-1] L4 Nukunu at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies

[ELP1-2] Endangered Languages Project data for Nukunu.

[3] Monaghan, Paul (2017). "1. Structures of Aboriginal life at the time of colonisation in South Australia". In Brock, Peggy; Gara, Tom (eds.). Colonialism and its aftermath: A history of Aboriginal South Australia (PDF). Extract, pp.i-xxiii. Wakefield. p. 17. ISBN 9781743054994.

[miru-4] 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.