Enindhilyagwa language

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Enindhilyagwa (several other names; see below) is an Australian language isolate spoken by the Warnindhilyagwa people on Groote Eylandt in the Gulf of Carpentaria in northern Australia. A 2001 Australian government study identified more than one thousand speakers of the language, 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 - which Enindhilyagwa does not have.^[1][2]

Names

Spellings of the name include:

• Andiljangwa
• Andilyaugwa
• Anindilyakwa (used by Ethnologue)
• Aninhdhilyagwa (used by R. M. W. Dixon's Australian Languages)
• Enindiljaugwa
• Enindhilyagwa
• Wanindilyaugwa

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

Classification

Although sometimes grouped with the Gunwinyguan languages, Enindhilyagwa has not been shown to be related to other Australian languages, and recent attempts by Nicholas Evans at reducing the number of language families in Australia have left it as an isolate.

Phonology

Vowels

The analysis of Enindhilyagwa's vowels is open to interpretation. Stokes (1981) analyses it as having four phonemic vowels, /i e a u/. Leeding (1989) analyses it as having just two, /ɨ a/.

Consonants

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:

• Human male
• Non-human male
• Female (human or non-human)
• Inanimate "lustrous", with the prefix a-.
• Inanimate "non-lustrous", with the prefix mwa-.

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.

Sources

• Leeding, V. J. (1989). Anindilyakwa phonology and morphology. PhD dissertation. University of Sydney. 
• Leeding, V. J. (1996). "Body parts and possession in Anindilyakwa". in Chappell, H. and McGregor, W.. The grammar of inalienability: a typological perspective on body part terms and the part-whole relation. Berlin: Mounton de Gruyter. pp. 193–249. 
• 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. 

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.

Words like "Akuwerikilyelyingmajungwuna" demonstrate the complexity of the language, where prefix and suffixes are assembled around the root word, making learning, reading and speaking the language challenging. Words of over 30 characters in length are not uncommon.

References

External links

• Enindhilyagwa language at Ethnologue
• Entry for Enindhilyagwa at Rosetta Project
• State of Indigenous Languages in Australia (2001). Department of the Environment and Heritage.

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