Alawa (Galawa) is a moribund

Indigenous Australian language The Indigenous languages of Australia number in the hundreds, the precise number being quite uncertain, although there is a range of estimates from a minimum of around 250 (using the technical definition of 'language' as non-mutually intellig ...

spoken by the

Alawa people The Alawa people are an Indigenous Australian people from Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory, Australia. The suburb of Alawa in the Darwin's north, is named in their honour. Language The Alawa language is a non Pama-Nyungan language, clas ...

of the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory ...

. In 1991, there were reportedly 18 remaining speakers and 4

semi-speaker Within the linguistic study of endangered languages, sociolinguists distinguish between different speaker types based on the type of competence they have acquired of the endangered language. Often when a community is gradually shifting away from ...

Phonology

Consonants

Alawa has a typical consonant inventory for an Indigenous Australian language, with five contrastive places of articulation, multiple lateral consonants, and no voicing contrast among the stops. Note: there are no standardised IPA symbols for alveopalatal stops.

Vowels

The

vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...

system of Alawa is made up of four vowel

phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...

s: the high front vowel /i/, the high back vowel /u/, the mid front vowel /e/, and the low central vowel /a/. There are no

rounding Rounding means replacing a number with an approximate value that has a shorter, simpler, or more explicit representation. For example, replacing $ with $, the fraction 312/937 with 1/3, or the expression with . Rounding is often done to obta ...

contrasts or

length Length is a measure of distance. In the International System of Quantities, length is a quantity with dimension distance. In most systems of measurement a base unit for length is chosen, from which all other units are derived. In the Interna ...

contrasts in this language.

Vocabulary

Capell Capell or Capel is a surname. Notable people with the name include: Capell * Arthur Capell, 1st Baron Capell of Hadham (1608–1649), English politician * Arthur Capell, 1st Earl of Essex (1631–1683), English statesman * Arthur Capell (1902–1 ...

(1942) lists the following basic vocabulary items:Capell, Arthur. 1941–1942, 1942–1943
Languages of Arnhem Land, North Australia
''Oceania'' 12: 364–392, 13: 24–51. :

References

External links

Bibliography of Alawa language and people resources
at the

Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), established as the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (AIAS) in 1964, is an independent Australian Government statutory authority. It is a collecting, ...

{{Australian Aboriginal languages Endangered indigenous Australian languages in the Northern Territory Mangarrayi–Maran languages