Kaytetye (also spelt Kaititj, Gaididj, Kaiditj, Kaytej) is an

Australian Aboriginal language The Indigenous languages of Australia number in the hundreds, the precise number being quite uncertain, although there is a range of estimates from a minimum of around 250 (using the technical definition of 'language' as non-mutually intellig ...

primarily spoken in the Northern Territory north of

Alice Springs Alice Springs () is a town in the Northern Territory, Australia; it is the third-largest settlement after Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin and Palmerston, Northern Territory, Palmerston. The name Alice Springs was given by surveyor William ...

by the Kaytetye people, who live around Barrow Creek and

Tennant Creek Tennant Creek () is a town located in the Northern Territory of Australia. It is the Northern Territory#Cities and towns, seventh largest town in the Northern Territory, and is located on the Stuart Highway, just south of the intersection with ...

. It belongs to the Arandic subgroup of the Pama-Nyungan languages and is related to Alyawarra, which is one of the

Upper Arrernte Arrernte or Aranda (; ), or sometimes referred to as Upper Arrernte (Upper Aranda), is a dialect cluster in the Arandic language group spoken in parts of the Northern Territory, Australia, by the Arrernte people. Other spelling variations are ...

dialects. It has an unusual

phonology Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often pre ...

and there are no known dialects. The language is considered to be threatened; it is used for face-to-face communication within all generations, but it is losing users, with only 109 speakers of the language in the 2021 census. The Kaytetye have (or had) a well-developed sign language known as Akitiri or Eltye eltyarrenke.

Phonology

Kaytetye is phonologically unusual in a number of ways. Words start with vowels and end with schwa; full CV(C) syllables only occur within a word, as in the word 'three' (schwa is spelled , unless initial, in which case it is not written and often not pronounced). Stress falls on the first full syllable. There are only two productive vowels, but numerous consonants, including pre-stopped and pre-palatalized consonants.Koch, 2006. "Kaytetye". In the ''Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics'', 2nd ed.

Consonants

Consonants occur plain and

labialized Labialization is a secondary articulatory feature of sounds in some languages. Labialized sounds involve the lips while the remainder of the oral cavity produces another sound. The term is normally restricted to consonants. When vowels invol ...

. is phonemically . In the orthography, is written .

Vowels

is marginal. Two-vowel systems are unusual, but occur in closely related Arrernte as well as in some

Northwest Caucasian languages The Northwest Caucasian languages, also called West Caucasian, Abkhazo-Adyghean, Abkhazo-Circassian, Circassic, or sometimes Pontic languages (from Ancient Greek, ''pontos'', referring to the Black Sea, in contrast to the Northeast Caucasian ...

. It seems that the vowel system derives from an earlier one with the typical Australian , but that *u lost its roundedness to neighboring consonants, resulting in the labialized series of consonants, while *i lost its frontness (palatal-ness) to other consonants as well, resulting in some cases in the prepalatalized series.

Grammar

Kin terms are obligatorily possessed, though with grammatically singular pronouns. There is a dyadic suffix as well: Dual and plural pronouns distinguish

clusivity In linguistics, clusivity is a grammatical distinction between ''inclusive'' and ''exclusive'' first-person pronouns and verbal morphology, also called ''inclusive " we"'' and ''exclusive "we"''. Inclusive "we" specifically includes the address ...

as well as moiety (or 'section') and generation. That is, for a male speaker, different pronouns are used for ''I and my sibling, grandparent, grandchild'' (even generation, same moiety), ''I and my father, I and my brother's child'' (odd generation, same moiety), and ''I and my mother, spouse, sister's child'' (opposite moiety). This results in twelve pronouns for 'we': That is, root ''ay-'', dual suffix ''-la'' or plural ''-na'', exclusive

infix An infix is an affix inserted inside a word stem (an existing word or the core of a family of words). It contrasts with '' adfix,'' a rare term for an affix attached to the outside of a stem, such as a prefix or suffix. When marking text for ...

', an irregular nasal for even generation, and a suffix for same moiety ''-ke'' or opposite moiety ''-nthe''. Verbs include incorporated former verbs of motion that indicate direction and relative timing of someone, usually the subject of the verb. There are differences depending on whether the verb is transitive or intransitive:

People

* Erlikilyika (Jim Kite) learnt to speak Kaytetye when working on the Overland Telegraph Line, and worked as an interpreter for anthropologists and explorers Spencer and Gillen.

Phonology

Consonants

Vowels

Grammar

People

References

Further reading