Dhuwal | |
---|---|
Dhay'yi | |
Native to | Australia |
Region | Northern Territory |
Ethnicity | Daii, Dhuwal, Dhuwala, Makarrwanhalmirr |
Native speakers | 4,200 (2021 census) [1] |
Pama–Nyungan
| |
Standard forms |
|
Dialects |
|
Yolŋu Sign Language | |
Official status | |
Official language in | Northern Territory (as lingua franca for Aboriginal people) [2] |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | Variously:
dwu – Dhuwal
djr – Djambarrpuyngu
gnn – Gumatj
guf – Gupapuyngu
dax – Dayi (Dhay'yi)
dwy – Dhuwaya |
Glottolog |
dhuw1248 Dhuwal-Dhuwala
dayi1244 Dayi |
AIATSIS [3] |
N198 Dhuwal,
N199 Dhuwala,
N118 Dhay'yi |
ELP | Dhuwala |
Liyagalawumirr [4] | |
Liyagawumirr [5] | |
Dhay'yi [6] |
Dhuwal (also Dual, Duala) is one of the Yolŋu languages spoken by Aboriginal Australians in the Northern Territory, Australia. Although all Yolŋu languages are mutually intelligible to some extent, Dhuwal represents a distinct dialect continuum of eight separate varieties. In 2019, Djambarrpuyŋu became the first indigenous language to be spoken in an Australian parliament, when Yolŋu man and member of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly Yingiya Guyula gave a speech in his native tongue. [7]
According to linguist Robert M. W. Dixon,
Ethnologue divides Dhuwal into four languages, plus Dayi and the contact variety Dhuwaya (numbers are from the 2006 census.[ citation needed]):
Dhuwaya is a stigmatised contact variant[ clarification needed] used by the younger generation in informal contexts, and is the form taught in schools, having replaced Gumatj ca. 1990.[ citation needed]
Peripheral | Laminal | Apical | Glottal | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Labial | Velar | Dental | Palatal | Alveolar | Retroflex | |||
Plosive | Fortis | p | k | t̪ | c | t | ʈ | ʔ |
Lenis | b | g | d̪ | ɟ | d | ɖ | ||
Nasal | m | ŋ | n̪ | ɲ | n | ɳ | ||
Tap | ɾ | |||||||
Lateral | l | ɭ | ||||||
Glide | w | j | ɻ |
Front | Back | |
---|---|---|
High | i iː | u uː |
Low | a aː |
Vowel length is contrastive in first syllable only. [9] [10]
Probably every Australian language with speakers remaining has had an orthography developed for it, in each case in the Latin script. Sounds not found in English are usually represented by digraphs, or more rarely by diacritics, such as underlines, or extra symbols, sometimes borrowed from the International Phonetic Alphabet. Some examples are shown in the following table.
Language | Example | Translation | Type |
---|---|---|---|
Pitjantjatjara dialect of the Western Desert language | paṉa | 'earth, dirt, ground; land' | diacritic (underline) indicates the retroflex nasal ([ɳ]) |
Wajarri | nhanha | 'this, this one' | digraph indicating the dental nasal ([n̪]) |
Yolŋu languages | yolŋu | 'person, man' | ⟨ ŋ⟩ represents the velar nasal (borrowed from the International Phonetic Alphabet) |