Jurruru is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

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 ...

formerly spoken in the Pilbara region of

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

, particularly near the Ashburton River. It is classified as part of the Pama–Nyungan language family, within the Ngayarda subgroup. There were two speakers left in 1967 and no speakers by 1986, leading to its extiction.

Grammar

Jurruru exhibits a

nominative–accusative alignment In linguistic typology, nominative–accusative alignment is a type of morphosyntactic alignment in which subjects of intransitive verbs are treated like subjects of transitive verbs, and are distinguished from objects of transitive verbs in b ...

system, characteristic of the Ngayarda languages to its north. This differs from the

split-ergative In linguistic typology, split ergativity is a feature of certain languages where some constructions use ergative syntax and morphology, but other constructions show another pattern, usually nominative–accusative. The conditions in which ergat ...

nominal morphology found in the Kanyara and

Mantharta languages Mantharta is a partly extinct dialect cluster spoken in the southern Pilbara region of Western Australia. There were four varieties, which were distinct but largely mutually intelligible. The four were: * Tharrgari (Tharrkari, Dhargari), still ...

. In Jurruru, the

accusative case In grammar, the accusative case ( abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to receive the direct object of a transitive verb. In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: "me", "him", "he ...

is marked by the suffix ''-ku'', contrasting with ''-nha'' in Mantharta and Kanyara. The

allative case The allative case ( ; abbreviated ; from Latin ''allāt-'', ''afferre'' "to bring to") is a type of locative grammatical case. The term allative is generally used for the lative case for the majority of languages that do not make finer distinc ...

is marked by ''-karta'', distinct from ''-kurla''/''-rla'' in Mantharta and ''-pura''/''-kurrunu'' in Kanyara. The

ablative case In grammar, the ablative case (pronounced ; list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a grammatical case for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives in the grammars of various languages. It is used to indicate motion away from something, make ...

is marked by ''-nguru'', similar to one of the two ablatives used in Jiwarli, but unlike the ''-parnti'' form seen in Kanyara and Mantharta. Unlike the southern groups, Jurruru marks transitive object noun phrases consistently with the accusative ''-ku'' regardless of clause type. In Mantharta and Kanyara, object marking can vary depending on syntactic context, such as purpose or relative clauses.

Pronouns

Jurruru's pronominal system aligns more closely with other Ngayarda languages, particularly Panyjima, than with the Mantharta group. The first-person singular accusative/

genitive case In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive ca ...

''nganaju'' appears to be a cognate with forms in Jiwarli and Warriyangka, though its function varies across groups. Jurruru does not distinguish inclusive vs. exclusive forms in the first-person non-singular pronouns, a trait also found in the Kanyara language Payungu but not in Mantharta. Jurruru's plural pronouns may exhibit final long vowels (e.g., ''-kuu''), possibly deriving from earlier ''-kuru'' forms via loss of ''r''.

Verbal morphology

Jurruru has a relatively simple verbal inflection system, consisting of two conjugation classes. This aligns with its northern Ngayarda neighbors and differs from the more complex systems found in the Mantharta and Kanyara languages. Its verb roots reflect the old present-tense form (e.g., ''manku-'' "take", ''yanku-'' "go", ''yungku-'' "give", ''ngalku-'' "eat"), a feature shared across most Ngayarda languages except Palyku, Panyjima, Ngarla, and Nyamal. By contrast, cognate verbs in Mantharta languages appear as ''mana-'' and ''yana-'' for "take" and "go," respectively.

References

Bibliography

* * * {{Pama–Nyungan languages, West Ngayarda languages Extinct languages of Western Australia Pilbara