Walmajarri language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Walmajarri
Spoken in:	Western Australia
Total speakers:	1,000
Language family:	Pama-Nyungan South-West Ngumbin Walmajarri
Writing system:	Latin alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	`aus`
ISO 639-3:	`wmt`
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key.

Walmajarri (many other names; see below) is a South-West Pama-Nyungan language spoken in Western Australia.

1 Names
2 The Speakers
3 Phonology
- 3.1 Vowels
- 3.2 Consonants
4 Morphology
5 Syntax
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Names

Names for this language include:

Walmajarri, Walmatjarri, Walmatjari, Walmadjari, Walmatjiri, Walmajiri, Walmatjeri, Walmadjeri, Walmadyeri, Walmaharri, Wolmeri, Wolmera, Wulmari
Bililuna, Pililuna
Jiwarliny, Juwaliny, Tjiwaling, Tjiwarlin

[edit] The Speakers

Communities with Walmajarri population are:

Bayulu
Djugerari (Cherrabun)
Junjuwa (Fitzroy Crossing)
Looma
Millijidee
Mindibungu (Bililuna)
Mindi Rardi (Fitzroy Crossing)
Mulan
Ngumpan
Wangkajungka (Christmas Creek)
Yakunarra
Yungngora

The Walmajarri people used to live in the Great Sandy Desert. Subsequent events took them to the cattle stations, towns and missions in the North and scattered them over a wide area. The geographical distance accounts for the fact that there are several dialects, which have been further polarized by the lack of contact and further influenced by neighbouring languages.

[edit] Phonology

[edit] Vowels

	Front	Back
High	i, iː	u, uː
Low	a, aː

[edit] Consonants

	Peripheral		Laminal	Apical
	Bilabial	Velar	Palatal	Alveolar	Retroflex
Stop	p	k	c	t	ʈ
Nasal	m	ŋ	ɲ	n	ɳ
Lateral			ʎ	l	ɭ
Rhotic				r
Approximant	w		j		ɻ

[edit] Morphology

This section is a stub. You can help by expanding it.

Warlmajarri is a suffixing language. There are no preffixes.

[edit] Syntax

This section is a stub. You can help by expanding it.

Warlmajarri has 4 syntactic cases: nominative, ergative, dative and assessory case. The cases assign different meanings to the noun phrases of a sentence. Therefore, the word order can vary quite freely. Subject, Object or Verb can appear initial, final, medial in sentence.

However, the second position of a sentence is always reserved for the Verbal Auxiliary. Sometimes referred to as a Catalyst, the Verbal Auxiliary indicates the mood of a sentence (similar to the English auxiliaries), but also cross-references its noun phrases. The person and number of the noun phrases in their syntactic cases are shown in the Verbal Auxiliary.

--16:58, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] References

Hudson, Joyce. (1978). The Walmatjari: An Introduction to the Language and Culture. Darwin: Summer Institute of Linguistics
Hudson, Joyce. (1978). The core of Walmatjari grammar. Australian Institute of Aborignal Studies. New Jersey, U.S.A.: Humanities Press Inc.
Hudson, Joyce & Richards, Eirlys. (1969). The phonology of Walmatjari.
Hudson, Joyce & Richards, Eirlys. (1990). Walmajarri – English Dictionary. Darwin: Summer Institute of Linguistics