Ngalakan (Ngalakgan) 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 ...
of the
Ngalakgan people. It has not been fully acquired by children since the 1930s.
It is one of the Northern
Non-Pama–Nyungan languages formerly spoken in the Roper river region of the
Northern Territory
The Northern Territory (abbreviated as NT; known formally as the Northern Territory of Australia and informally as the Territory) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian internal territory in the central and central-northern regi ...
. It is most closely related to
Rembarrnga.
Sounds
Consonants
Ngalakan has a typical Australian consonant inventory, with many coronal places of articulation (see
Coronals in Indigenous Australian languages), including nasals at every stop place, and four liquids, but no fricatives. Baker (1999, 2008) analyses the language as having both geminate and singleton realizations of every plosive consonant. Merlan (1983), however, argues that there is a
fortis–lenis contrast, and thus two series of plosives rather than the one shown here. Lenis/short plosives have weak contact and intermittent voicing, while fortis/long plosives have full closure, a more powerful release burst, and no voicing. Similar contrasts are found in other
Gunwinyguan languages, such as
Bininj Kunwok,
Jawoyn,
Dalabon,
Rembarrnga,
Ngandi,
[Heath 1978] as well as in the neighboring
Yolngu languages.
Vowels
Features
Ngalakgan is syntactically free, with pragmatically determined word order.
There is
free word order
In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntax, syntactic Constituent (linguistics), constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how languages em ...
, with no syntactically governed positions for subject, object, verb etc. in a sentence. All this information is encoded in the morphology, which results in highly complex word structures. Interpreting these complex words correctly is crucial in determining what the speaker is trying to say.
Unlike most
polysynthetic
In linguistic typology, polysynthetic languages, formerly holophrastic languages, are highly synthetic languages, i.e., languages in which words are composed of many morphemes (word parts that have independent meaning but may or may not be able t ...
languages, Ngalakgan is almost entirely
agglutinating
An agglutinative language is a type of language that primarily forms words by stringing together morphemes (word parts)—each typically representing a single grammatical meaning—without significant modification to their forms ( agglutinations) ...
.
Compounding
In the field of pharmacy, compounding (performed in compounding pharmacies) is preparation of custom medications to fit unique needs of patients that cannot be met with mass-produced formulations. This may be done, for example, to provide medic ...
is a productive process in Ngalakan which applies to all major lexical categories: noun+adjective, noun+verb adverb+verb. Suffixation for argument (ergative, genitive, dative), local semantic roles (locative, allative, ablative, perlative) and number occurs.
References
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External links
Ngalakan basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database
{{Authority control
Gunwinyguan languages