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Bungandidj language

Bungandidj is a language of Australia, spoken by the Bungandidj people, Indigenous Australians who lived in an area which is now in south-eastern South Australia and in south-western Victoria. According to Christina Smith and her book on the Buandig people, the Bungandidj called their language drualat-ngolonung (speech of man), or Booandik-ngolo (speech of the Booandik).^[3] As of 2017, there is a revival and maintenance programme under way for the language.^[4]

Historical variants of the name include: Bunganditj, Bungandaetch, Bunga(n)daetcha, Bungandity, Bungandit, Buganditch, Bungaditj, Pungantitj, Pungatitj, Booganitch, Buanditj, Buandik, Booandik, Boandiks, Bangandidj, Bungandidjk, Pungandik, Bak-on-date, Barconedeet, Booandik-ngolo, Borandikngolo, Bunganditjngolo, and Burhwundeirtch.

Phonology[edit]

Bungandidj phonology is typical of Australian languages generally, sharing characteristics such as a single series of stops (no voicing contrast) at six places of articulation, a full corresponding set of nasals, laminals at all four coronal places of articulation and two glides.^[5] Extrapolating from historical written sources and knowledge of surrounding languages, Blake posits the following consonant inventory:^[5]

Consonants[edit]

Vowels[edit]

Notes on orthography[edit]

• Early descriptions of Bungandidj made no distinction between the trill/flap /r/ and approximant /ɻ/ and evidence for this contrast is based on comparative evidence only. Blake transcribes both as ⟨r⟩.^[5]
• Although there is no voicing distinction, stops are transcribed with voiced symbols ⟨b, g, dh, d, rd⟩ in homorganic nasal-stop clusters (where voicing is expected).^[5]
• Syllable-final palatals are transcribed with the digraphs ⟨yt, yn, yl⟩ to avoid a final -y being confused with a vowel.^[5]
• Historical sources include five vowel graphemes including ⟨e⟩ and ⟨o⟩; however, it is likely that ⟨e⟩ belongs to the /i/ phoneme and ⟨o⟩ belongs to the /u/ phoneme. However, Blake conservatively retains some ⟨e⟩ and ⟨o⟩ segments where they are consistently transcribed in this way across historical sources.

A poem[edit]

Smith (1880), on pages 138–139, records a poem written in Bungandidj :^[3]

References[edit]