The Kokatha language, also written Kukatha, Kokata, Gugada, and other variants, and also referred to as Madutara, Maduwonga, Nganitjidi, Wanggamadu, and Yallingarra and variant spellings of these, 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 Western Desert group traditionally spoken by the Kokatha people, whose traditional lands are in the western part of the state of

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...

, north of the

Wirangu people The Wirangu are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Western coastal region of South Australia. Name Daisy Bates stated that the Wirangu ethnonym was composed of two words: ''wira'' (cloud) and ''wonga'' (speech). Language Wirangu is usual ...

Country

Kokatha was historically spoken in northern western areas of South Australia.

Norman Tindale Norman Barnett Tindale AO (12 October 1900 – 19 November 1993) was an Australian anthropologist, archaeologist, entomologist and ethnologist. He is best remembered for his work mapping the various tribal groupings of Aboriginal Australians ...

recorded Kokatha speakers at

Tarcoola Tarcoola is a town in the Far North (South Australia), Far North of South Australia north-northwest of Port Augusta. At the , Tarcoola had no people living within its boundaries. ''Tarcoola'' was named after ''Tarcoola'' the winner of the 189 ...

, Kingoonya,

Pimba Pimba is an umbrella term for Portuguese types or genres of music with an uptempo style and/or folk song features, corny romantic or saucy and vulgar lyrics, which was often associated with poorly educated public from rural areas and suburban p ...

, and McDouall Peak; west to

Ooldea Ooldea, known as Yuldea and various other names by Western Desert peoples ( Aṉangu), is a tiny settlement in South Australia. It is on the eastern edge of the Nullarbor Plain, west of Port Augusta on the Trans-Australian Railway. Ooldea is ...

; north to

Stuart Range The Stuart Range is a mountain range in central Washington (state), Washington, United States. The range lies within the eastern extent of the Cascade Range immediately southwest of Leavenworth, Washington, Leavenworth and runs east–west. ...

and Lake Phillipson. At the time of first European contact, their lands appeared to centre on Mount Eba, covering surrounding land to Kingoonya, Tarcoola,

Coober Pedy Coober Pedy () is a town in northern South Australia, north of Adelaide on the Stuart Highway. The town is sometimes referred to as the "opal capital of the world" because of the quantity of precious opals that are mined there. A blower truck ...

and possibly Ooldea. Today, Kokatha people live in Ceduna,

Koonibba Koonibba is a locality and an associated Aboriginal community in South Australia located about northwest of the state capital of Adelaide and about northwest of the municipal seat in Ceduna and north of the Eyre Highway. The settlement ...

Port Augusta Port Augusta (''Goordnada'' in the revived indigenous Barngarla language) is a coastal city in South Australia about by road from the state capital, Adelaide. Most of the city is on the eastern shores of Spencer Gulf, immediately south of the ...

Adelaide Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to ei ...

and other places around the state.

Classification

Kokatha is a dialect of the

Western Desert language The Western Desert language, or Wati, is a dialect cluster of Australian Aboriginal languages in the Pama–Nyungan family. The name ''Wati'' tends to be used when considering the various varieties to be distinct languages, ''Western Desert'' w ...

group, closely related to other dialects in the group. It is to be distinguished from the two other Western Desert dialects known as Kokatja or Kukatja dialect (A68 and C7 in

AUSTLANG The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), established as the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (AIAS) in 1964, is an independent Australian Government statutory authority. It is a collecting, ...

). Kokatha has also been grouped as a Far West Coast language, together with

Mirning The Mirning, also known as the Ngandatha, are an Aboriginal Australian people whose traditional lands lay on the coastal region of the Great Australian Bight extending from Western Australia into south-west South Australia. Name ''Mirniŋ'' was ...

and Wirangu. In 1972, linguist John Platt published a

grammar In linguistics, grammar is the set of rules for how a natural language is structured, as demonstrated by its speakers or writers. Grammar rules may concern the use of clauses, phrases, and words. The term may also refer to the study of such rul ...

of the Kokatha language. Platt distinguished two types, Gugada and Gugadja, with Gugadja more like Western Desert than Gugada, which he thought was linked more closely to Wirangu. the distinctions between the two are not clear, but both remain classified as Kokatha by

AIATSIS The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), established as the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (AIAS) in 1964, is an independent Australian Government statutory authority. It is a collecting, ...

in their AUSTLANG database.

Phonology

Consonants

* Sounds /t̪, n̪, l̪/ are only heard when preceding vowels /a, aː, u, uː/, when preceding /i, iː/ they are always palatal as , ɲ, ʎ * Stop sounds are voiced as , ɡ, d̪~ɟ, d, ɖwhen preceded by a nasal, and sometimes in intervocalic positions. * The flap sound /ɾ/ may also be heard as an alveolar glide �in free variation. It may also be heard as a trill in emphatic speech. * Sounds /ɲ, ŋ/ when in word-final position, may vary between being heard as voiced or voiceless �̊, ŋ̊

Vowels

* /i/ can also be heard as �in stressed syllables or in word-final position, and as �ə̆when emphasized before a retroflex consonant. * /a/ may also be heard as fronted �when after /j/ or other palatal/dental phonemes, as �when before or after /w/, as �when in open word-final position, and as back �in primary stressed syllables or before a retroflex consonant as well as being heard as �ə̆when emphasized before a retroflex consonant. * /u/ may also be heard as �when in word-final position or before a retroflex or nasal consonant, as when between velar consonants or before /w/, as �when in the second syllable of words with three or more syllables, or as �ə̆when emphasized before a retroflex or nasal consonant.

Overlap with other languages

People from Kokatha, Mirning and Wirangu language groups lived at

Koonibba Mission Koonibba is a locality and an associated Aboriginal community in South Australia located about northwest of the state capital of Adelaide and about northwest of the municipal seat in Ceduna and north of the Eyre Highway. The settlement ...

from around 1900, and many

loan word A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing (linguistics), borrowing. Borrowing ...

s moved among the languages there and across the region.PDF
/ref> A wordlist compiled by Pastor August Hoff, Superintendent of Koonibba Mission from 1920 to 1930, between 1920 and 1952 and published by his son Lothar in 2004, included words from the Wirangu, Kokatha and

Pitjantjatjara language Pitjantjatjara ( ; or ) is a dialect of the Western Desert language traditionally spoken by the Pitjantjatjara people of Central Australia. It is mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible with other varieties of the Western Desert languag ...

s. According to Kokatha woman

Dylan Coleman Dylan David Coleman (born September 16, 1996) is an American professional baseball pitcher who is a free agent. He has previously played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Kansas City Royals and Houston Astros. Amateur career Coleman attende ...

in her 2010 PhD thesis,

Luise Hercus Luise Anna Hercus , , (16 January 1926 – 15 April 2018) was a German-born linguist who lived in Australia from 1954. After significant early work on Middle Indo-Aryan dialects (Prakrits) she had specialised in Australian Aboriginal languages si ...

' work entitled ''A grammar of the Wirangu language from the west coast of South Australia'' (1999) was based on the words spoken by two fluent Kokatha speakers, who were Coleman's grandmothers. They believed that their input was part of the work to create a Kokatha dictionary, and refuted Hercus' claim that the language was Wirangu, as they had been taught Kokatha language and culture by Kokatha elders for generations.

Language revival

The Mobile Language Team works with the Far West Language Centre in Ceduna in researching the Kokatha language and performing other language-related activities.