Nukunu (or Nugunu or many other names: see below) is a moribund

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 ...

spoken by Nukunu people on Yorke Peninsula,

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

. As of 2017, there is a revival and maintenance programme under way for the language.

Names

This language has been known by many names by neighbouring tribes and Australianists, including: *Nukuna, Nokunna, Noocoona, Nookoona, Nuguna, Nukana, Nukunnu, Nukunu, Njuguna *Doora *Pukunna *Tjura, Tyura *Wallaroo, Warra *Wongaidya (from ''wangkatya'', present tense form of verb 'to speak')

Classification

Nukunu is a Pama–Nyungan language, closely related to neighboring languages in the Miru clusterHercus pp. 1; Schmidt called this cluster (a subgroup of Thura–Yura) as "Miru" in 1919. Perhaps these languages are part of the Kadli group as well. like Narungga,

Kaurna The Kaurna people (, ; also Coorna, Kaura, Gaurna and other variations) are a group of Aboriginal people whose traditional lands include the Adelaide Plains of South Australia. They were known as the Adelaide tribe by the early settlers. Kaurn ...

, and Ngadjuri.

Phonology

Vowels

Nukunu has three different vowels with contrastive long and short lengths (a, i, u, a:, i:, u:).

Consonants

The Nukunu consonantal inventory is typical for a Pama–Nyungan language, with six places of articulation for stops and nasals. There are three

rhotics In phonetics, rhotic consonants, or "R-like" sounds, are liquid consonants that are traditionally represented orthographically by symbols derived from the Greek letter rho, including , in the Latin script and , in the Cyrillic script. They a ...

in the language. A phonemic voicing contrast exists in Nukunu, but it has only been observed in the retroflex stop series. An example demonstrating such a contrast intervocalically is ''kurdi'' (

phlegm Phlegm (; , ''phlégma'', "inflammation", "humour caused by heat") is mucus produced by the respiratory system, excluding that produced by the nasal passages. It often refers to respiratory mucus expelled by coughing, otherwise known as sputum. ...

, IPA kuɖi and ''kurti'' ( quandong, IPA kuʈi.

History

In contrast with other Thura–Yura languages, Nukunu did not partake in either the initial th- lenition before vowels or the lenition of initial k- before vowels.

Notes

References

* Thura-Yura languages {{ia-lang-stub