Nukunu language

Nukunu (or Nugunu or many other names: see below) is a moribund Australian Aboriginal language spoken by Nukunu people on Yorke Peninsula, South Australia. As of 2017, there is a revival and maintenance programme under way for the language.^[2]

Nukunu
Native to	Australia
Region	South Australia
Ethnicity	Nukunu
Extinct	c. 2000
Revival	11-50 (2019)[1]
Language family	Pama–Nyungan Thura-Yura (unclassified) Nukunu
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	nnv
Glottolog	nugu1241
AIATSIS[1]	L4
ELP	Nukunu
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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

Aboriginal languages of South Australia

Nukunu is a Pama–Nyungan language, closely related to neighboring languages in the Miru cluster^[3] like Narungga, Kaurna, and Ngadjuri.

Phonology

Vowels

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

	Front	Back
High	i iː	u uː
Low	a aː

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 the language.

		Peripheral		Laminal		Apical
		Labial	Velar	Dental	Palatal	Alveolar	Retroflex
Stop	Voiceless	p	k	t̪	c	t	ʈ
	Voiced						(ɖ)
Nasal		m	ŋ	n̪	ɲ	n	ɳ
Lateral				l̪	ʎ	l	ɭ
Tap						ɾ
Trill						r
Approximant		w			j		ɻ

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, 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.