Yidiny language
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Yidiny | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Australia | |
| Region: | Queensland | |
| Total speakers: | 12 (1981) | |
| Language family: | Australian Pama-Nyungan Yidinic Yidiny |
|
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | none | |
| ISO 639-2: | aus | |
| ISO 639-3: | yii | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
Yidiny (also spelled Yidinj, Yidiɲ, Yidinʸ) is a nearly extinct Australian Aboriginal language, spoken by the Yidindji tribe of northern Queensland.
Contents |
[edit] Sounds
[edit] Vowels
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| High | i, iː | u, uː |
| Low | a, aː | |
[edit] Consonants
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | b | d | ɟ | ɡ | |
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | |
| Lateral | l | ||||
| Rhotic | r | ɽ | |||
| Semivowel | j | w |
[edit] Grammar
The Yidiny language has a number of particles that change the meaning of an entire clause. These, unlike other forms in the language, such as nouns, verbs and gender markers, have no grammatical case and take no tense inflections. The particles in the Yidiny language: nguju - 'not' (nguju also functions as the negative interjection 'no'), giyi - 'don't', biri - 'done again', yurrga - 'still', mugu - 'couldn't help it' (mugu refers to something unsatisfactory but that is impossible to avoid doing), jaymbi / jaybar - 'in turn'. E.g. 'I hit him and he jaymbi hit me', 'He hit me and I jaybar hit him'.
[edit] Affixes
In common with several other Australian Aboriginal languages, Yidiny is an agglutinative ergative-absolutive language. There are many affixes which indicate a number of different grammatical concepts, such as the agent of an action (shown by -nggu), the ablative case (shown by -mu or -m), the past tense (shown by -nyu) and the present and future tenses (both represented with the affix -ng). There are also two affixes which lengthen the last vowel of the verbal root to which they are added, -Vli- and -Vlda (the capital letter 'V' indicates the lengthened final vowel of the verbal root). For example: magi- 'climb up' + ili + -nyu 'past tense affix' (giving magiilinyu), magi- 'climb up' + ilda + -nyu 'past tense affix' (giving magiildanyu). The affix -Vli- means 'do while going' and the affix -Vlda- means 'do while coming'. It is for this reason that they cannot be added to the verbs gali- 'go' or gada- 'come'. Therefore, the word magiilinyu means 'went up, climbing' and magiildanyu means 'came up, climbing'.
[edit] Affixes and number of syllables
There is a general preference in Yidiny that as many words as possible should have an even number of syllables. It is for this reason that the affixes differ according to the word to which they are added. For example: the past tense affix is -nyu when the verbal root has three syllables, producing a word that has four syllables: majinda- 'walk up' becomes majindanyu in the past tense, whereas with a disyllabic root the final vowel is lengthened and -Vny is added: gali- 'go' becomes galiiny in the past tense, thus producing a word that has two syllables. The same prinicple applies when forming the genitive: waguja- + -ni = wagujani 'man's' (four syllables), bunya- + -Vn- = bunyaan 'woman's'. The preference for an even number of syllables is retained in the affix that shows a relative clause: -nyunda is used with a verb that has two or four syllables (gali- (two syllables) 'go' + nyunda = galinyunda), giving a word that has four syllables whereas a word that has three or five syllables takes -nyuun (majinda- (three syllables) 'walk up' + nyuun = majindanyuun), giving a word that has four syllables.[1]
[edit] Bibliography
- R.M.W. Dixon. (1977). A Grammar of Yidiny. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- R.M.W. Dixon. (1984, 1989). Searching for Aboriginal Languages. University of Chicago Press.
[edit] References
- ^ R.M.W. Dixon, Searching for Aboriginal Languages, pages 247-251, University of Chicago Press, 1989
