Kunjen, or Uw, is a

Paman language The Paman languages are an Australian language family spoken on Cape York Peninsula, Queensland. First noted by Kenneth Hale, Paman is noteworthy for the profound phonological changes which have affected some of its descendants. Classificat ...

spoken on the

Cape York Peninsula The Cape York Peninsula is a peninsula located in Far North Queensland, Australia. It is the largest wilderness in northern Australia.Mittermeier, R.E. et al. (2002). Wilderness: Earth's last wild places. Mexico City: Agrupación Sierra Madre, ...

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

, Australia, by the Uw Oykangand, Olkola, and related

Aboriginal Australian Aboriginal Australians are the various indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, excluding the ethnically distinct people of the Torres Strait Islands. Humans first migrated to Australia 50,000 to 65,000 year ...

peoples. It is closely related to

Kuuk Thaayorre Kuuk Thaayorre (Thayore) is a Paman languages, Paman language spoken in the settlement Pormpuraaw, Queensland, Pormpuraaw on the western part of the Cape York Peninsula, Queensland in Australia by the Thaayorre people. As of 2006, 250 of the 350 ...

, and perhaps Kuuk Yak.

Dialects

Two of its dialects, Uw Olkola (Olgolo) and Uw Oykangand (Koko Wanggara), are very close, being

mutually intelligible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between different but related language varieties in which speakers of the different varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. Mutual intellig ...

and sharing 97% of their core

vocabulary A vocabulary (also known as a lexicon) is a set of words, typically the set in a language or the set known to an individual. The word ''vocabulary'' originated from the Latin , meaning "a word, name". It forms an essential component of languag ...

. Another two, Ogh-Undjan and Kawarrangg, are also close, but somewhat more distant from the first pair. Kokinj (Kokiny) is a subdialect of Ogh-Undjan. A fifth variety, Athima, is poorly attested. Below is a table showing the mutual intelligibility in vocabulary between the Kunjen dialects, based on a list of 100 basic words. A small

dictionary A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged Alphabetical order, alphabetically (or by Semitic root, consonantal root for Semitic languages or radical-and-stroke sorting, radical an ...

of Kunjen has been compiled by Philip Hamilton. A great majority of words begin with a vowel (>96%), similar to the situation in distantly-related

Arrernte Arrernte (also spelt Aranda, etc.) is a descriptor related to a group of Aboriginal Australian peoples from Central Australia. It may refer to: * Arrernte (area), land controlled by the Arrernte Council (?) * Arrernte people, Aboriginal Australi ...

. Exceptions include

kinship terms Kinship terminology is the system used in languages to refer to the persons to whom an individual is related through kinship. Different societies classify kinship relations differently and therefore use different systems of kinship terminology; ...

and loanwords. Syllable onsets are thought to be present in all languages, so their absence in native lexicon is highly notable.

Respect register

As in many other

Australian languages 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 ...

, such as Dyirbal, Kunjen also has a respect register, which is a polite way of speaking with a potential

mother-in-law A parent-in-law is a person who has a legal affinity with another by being the parent of the other's spouse. Many cultures and legal systems impose duties and responsibilities on persons connected by this relationship. A person is a child-in-law ...

and is called ''Olkel-Ilmbanhthi''. Most of the vocabulary is replaced, while

affix In linguistics, an affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word or word form. The main two categories are Morphological derivation, derivational and inflectional affixes. Derivational affixes, such as ''un-'', ''-ation' ...

es and function words are kept.

Phonology

Vowels

Kunjen has 5

vowel A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness a ...

s: There is a lexical

vowel harmony In phonology, vowel harmony is a phonological rule in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – must share certain distinctive features (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is typically long distance, meaning tha ...

constraint in Kunjen: Close and mid vowels do not co-occur in a word.

Consonants

Kunjen has 27

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...

In popular culture

The Uw Olkola word for the

freshwater crocodile The freshwater crocodile (''Crocodylus johnstoni)'', also known Common name, commonly as the Australian freshwater crocodile, Johnstone's crocodile, and the freshie, is a species of crocodile native to the northern regions of Australia. Unlike ...

, , was used as the name of a tribe on the second season of the American reality television series,

Survivor Survivor(s) may refer to: * one who survives Arts, entertainment and media Fictional entities * Survivors, characters in the 1997 KKnD series#Armies, ''KKnD'' video-game series * ''The Survivors'', or the ''New Survivors Foundation'', a fictional ...

in 2001.

References

* *