Enindhilyagwa language

Enindhilyagwa
Anindilyakwa
Region Groote Eylandt in the Gulf of Carpentaria, Northern Territory, Australia
Native speakers
 1,300 (2006 census)[1]
Arnhem?

  • East Arnhem?

    • Enindhilyagwa
Language codes
ISO 639-3 aoi
Glottolog anin1240[2]
AIATSIS[1] N151

Enindhilyagwa (also Anindilyakwa and several other names; see below) is an Australian Aboriginal language spoken by the Warnindhilyagwa people on Groote Eylandt in the Gulf of Carpentaria in the Northern Territory of Australia. A 2001 Australian government study identified more than 100p speakers of the language,[3] although there are reports of as many as three thousand. In 2008, it was cited in a study on whether humans had an innate ability to count without having words for numbers. While the language traditionally had terms for numbers up to 20, they are no longer known to younger speakers.[4][5]

Enindhilyagwa may be most closely related to Nunggubuyu, on the adjacent mainland, but that is yet to be confirmed.[1]

Names

Spellings of the name include:

It also known as Groote Eylandt, after its location. Another name is Ingura or Yingguru.

Classification

Once left as a language isolate, Enindhilyagwa has been linked with the Arnhem languages of the mainland.[6][7]

Phonology

Vowels

The analysis of Enindhilyagwa's vowels is open to interpretation. Stokes[8] analyses it as having four phonemic vowels, /i e a u/. Leeding[9] analyses it as having just two, /ɨ a/.

Consonants

Peripheral Coronal
Bilabial Velar Laminal Apical
rounded unrounded Palatal Dental Alveolar Retroflex
Stop p kʷ k c t̪ t ʈ
Nasal m ŋʷ ŋ ɲ n̪ n ɳ
Lateral ʎ l̪ (m)
Rhotic ɲ ɻ
Semivowel w j

Phonotactics

All Enindhilyagwa words end in a vowel. Clusters of up to three consonants can occur within words.

Grammar

Noun classes

Enindhilyagwa has five noun classes, or genders, each marked by a prefix:

For bound pronouns, instead of "human male" and "non-human male" classes there is a single "male" class.

All native nouns carry a class prefix, but some loanwords may lack them.

Numerals

According to Stokes[10] the language traditionally had numerals up to twenty but since the introduction of English, English words are now used almost exclusively for numbers above five.

Example

This song is a translation of the church song "This is the day", sung by the local churchgoers in the community of Angurugu. The spelling and translation requires confirmation.

Anindilyakwa Approximate translation
Mema mamawurra

Ngumanekburrakama God

Narriyekiyerra, Akuwerikilyelyingmajungwuna

Narriyekiyerra

Akuwerikilyelyingmajungwuna

 This day

Made by God

We will rejoice and be glad in it

This is the day made by God

We will rejoice in it

References

  1. 1 2 3 Enindhilyagwa at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
  2. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Anindilyakwa". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  3. ↑ http://www.deh.gov.au/soe/techpapers/languages/indicator3d.html Archived July 17, 2005, at the Wayback Machine.
  4. ↑ UCL Media Relations, "Aboriginal kids can count without numbers"
  5. ↑ The Science Show, Genetic anomaly could explain severe difficulty with arithmetic, Australian Broadcasting Corporation
  6. ↑ Bowern & Koch, 2004. Australian Languages: Classification and the Comparative Method, p 44
  7. ↑ Bowern, Claire. 2011. "How Many Languages Were Spoken in Australia?", Anggarrgoon: Australian languages on the web, December 23, 2011 (corrected February 6, 2012)
  8. ↑ Stokes, J. (1981). "Anindilyakwa phonology from phoneme to syllable". In Waters, B. Australian phonologies: collected papers. Darwin: Summer Institute of Linguistics, Australian Aborigines Branch. pp. 138–81.
  9. ↑ Leeding, V. J. (1989). Anindilyakwa phonology and morphology. PhD dissertation. University of Sydney.
  10. ↑ Stokes, J. (1982). "A description of the mathematical concepts of Groote Eylandt Aborigines". In Hargrave, S. Work Papers of SIL-AAB: Language and Culture. Darwin: Summer Institute of Linguistics, Australian Aborigines Branch. pp. 33–152.
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