Nukunu | |
---|---|
Region | South Australia |
Ethnicity | Nukunu |
Extinct | ca. 2000 |
| |
Latin | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | nnv |
Glottolog | nugu1241 |
AIATSIS[1] | L4 |
ELP | Nukunu |
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Nukunu (orNugunu or many other names: see below) is a moribund Australian Aboriginal language spoken by Nukunu peopleonYorke Peninsula, South Australia. As of 2017, there is a revival and maintenance programme under way for the language.[2]
This language has been known by many names by neighbouring tribes and Australianists, including:
Nukunu is a Pama–Nyungan language, closely related to neighboring languages in the Miru cluster[3] like Narungga, Kaurna, and Ngadjuri.
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 |
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 |
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]).
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.
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