Enindhilyagwa language
Encyclopedia
Enindhilyagwa is an Australian
language isolate
spoken by the Warnindhilyagwa people on Groote Eylandt
in the Gulf of Carpentaria
in northern Australia. A 2001 Australian government study identified more than one thousand speakers of the language, although there are reports of as many as three thousand. In 2008, it was cited in a study on whether humans had an innate ability to count without having words for numbers. While the Enindhilyagwa language traditionally had terms for numbers up to twenty, these are no longer known to younger speakers.
It also known as Groote Eylandt, after its location. Another name is Ingura or Yingguru.
(in a branch with Ngandi and Nunggubuyu in the classification of Ethnologue), Enindhilyagwa has not been shown to be related to other Australian languages, and recent attempts by Nicholas Evans
at reducing the number of language families
in Australia have left it as an isolate.
, or genders, each marked by a prefix:
For bound pronouns, instead of "human male" and "non-human male" classes there is a single "male" class.
All native nouns carry a class prefix, but some loanword
s may lack them.
Australian Aboriginal languages
The Australian Aboriginal languages comprise several language families and isolates native to the Australian Aborigines of Australia and a few nearby islands, but by convention excluding the languages of Tasmania and the Torres Strait Islanders...
language isolate
Language isolate
A language isolate, in the absolute sense, is a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical relationship with other languages; that is, one that has not been demonstrated to descend from an ancestor common with any other language. They are in effect language families consisting of a single...
spoken by the Warnindhilyagwa people on Groote Eylandt
Groote Eylandt
Groote Eylandt is the largest island in the Gulf of Carpentaria in northeastern Australia. It is the homeland of, and is owned by, the Anindilyakwa people who speak the isolated Anindilyakwa language)....
in the Gulf of Carpentaria
Gulf of Carpentaria
The Gulf of Carpentaria is a large, shallow sea enclosed on three sides by northern Australia and bounded on the north by the Arafura Sea...
in northern Australia. A 2001 Australian government study identified more than one thousand speakers of the language, although there are reports of as many as three thousand. In 2008, it was cited in a study on whether humans had an innate ability to count without having words for numbers. While the Enindhilyagwa language traditionally had terms for numbers up to twenty, these are no longer known to younger speakers.
Names
Spellings of the name include:- Andiljangwa
- Andilyaugwa
- Anindilyakwa (used by EthnologueEthnologueEthnologue: Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International , a Christian linguistic service organization, which studies lesser-known languages, to provide the speakers with Bibles in their native language and support their efforts in language development.The Ethnologue...
) - Aninhdhilyagwa (used by R. M. W. DixonR. M. W. DixonRobert Malcolm Ward Dixon is a Professor of Linguistics at The Cairns Institute, James Cook University, Queensland, and formerly Director of the Research Centre for Linguistic Typology at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia.In 1996, Dixon and another linguist, Alexandra Aikhenvald,...
's Australian Languages) - Enindiljaugwa
- Enindhilyagwa
- Wanindilyaugwa
It also known as Groote Eylandt, after its location. Another name is Ingura or Yingguru.
Classification
Although sometimes grouped with the Gunwinyguan languagesGunwinyguan languages
The Gunwinyguan languages form the second largest family of Australian Aboriginal languages. They are spoken in Arnhem Land in northern Australia. The most populous language is Gunwinygu, with some 1500 speakers....
(in a branch with Ngandi and Nunggubuyu in the classification of Ethnologue), Enindhilyagwa has not been shown to be related to other Australian languages, and recent attempts by Nicholas Evans
Nicholas Evans (linguist)
Nicholas Evans is an Australian-American linguist.Holding a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the Australian National University , he is Head and Professor at the School of Culture, History and Language at the College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University...
at reducing the number of language families
Language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term 'family' comes from the tree model of language origination in historical linguistics, which makes use of a metaphor comparing languages to people in a...
in Australia have left it as an isolate.
Vowels
The analysis of Enindhilyagwa's vowels is open to interpretation. Stokes (1981) analyses it as having four phonemic vowels, /i e a u/. Leeding (1989) analyses it as having just two, /ɨ a/.Consonants
| Peripheral Peripheral consonant In Australian linguistics, the peripheral consonants are a natural class encompassing consonants articulated at the extremes of the mouth: bilabials and velars. That is, they are the non-coronal consonants... |
Laminal Laminal consonant A laminal consonant is a phone produced by obstructing the air passage with the blade of the tongue, which is the flat top front surface just behind the tip of the tongue on the top. This contrasts with apical consonants, which are produced by creating an obstruction with the tongue apex only... |
Apical Apical consonant An apical consonant is a phone produced by obstructing the air passage with the apex of the tongue . This contrasts with laminal consonants, which are produced by creating an obstruction with the blade of the tongue .This is not a very common distinction, and typically applied only to fricatives... |
|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bilabial Bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:... |
Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... |
Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate... |
Dental | Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth... |
Retroflex Retroflex consonant A retroflex consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants, especially in Indology... |
||
| Unrounded | Rounded | ||||||
| Stop Stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &... |
p | k | kʷ | c | t̪ | t | ʈ |
| Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
m | ŋ | ŋʷ | ɲ | n̪ | n | ɳ |
| Lateral Lateral consonant A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth.... |
ʎ | l̪ | (ɭ) | ||||
| Rhotic Rhotic consonant In phonetics, rhotic consonants, also called tremulants or "R-like" sounds, are liquid consonants that are traditionally represented orthographically by symbols derived from the Greek letter rho, including "R, r" from the Roman alphabet and "Р, p" from the Cyrillic alphabet... |
r | ɻ | |||||
| Semivowel Semivowel In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel is a sound, such as English or , that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary rather than as the nucleus of a syllable.-Classification:... |
w | j | |||||
Phonotactics
All Enindhilyagwa words end in a vowel. Clusters of up to three consonants can occur within words.Noun classes
Enindhilyagwa has five noun classesGrammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
, or genders, each marked by a prefix:
- Human male
- Non-human male
- Female (human or non-human)
- Inanimate "lustrous", with the prefix a-.
- Inanimate "non-lustrous", with the prefix mwa-.
For bound pronouns, instead of "human male" and "non-human male" classes there is a single "male" class.
All native nouns carry a class prefix, but some loanword
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
s may lack them.
Numerals
According to Stokes (1982) the language traditionally had numerals up to twenty but since the introduction of English, English words are now used almost exclusively for numbers above five.Example
This song is a translation of the church song "This is the day", sung by the local churchgoers in the community of Angurugu. The spelling and translation requires confirmation.| Anindilyakwa | Approximate translation |
|---|---|
| Mema mamawurra Ngumanekburrakama God Narriyekiyerra, Akuwerikilyelyingmajungwuna Narriyekiyerra Akuwerikilyelyingmajungwuna |
This day Made by God We will rejoice and be glad in it This is the day made by God We will rejoice in it |
External links
- Entries for Enindhilyagwa from Rosetta Project, stored in the Internet Archive
- State of Indigenous Languages in Australia (2001). Department of the Environment and HeritageDepartment of the Environment and Heritage (Australia)The Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities , formerly the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts , is a department of the Australian federal government and was established on 14 September 2010.The stated aims of the department is to achieve...
.