Dhuwal (also Dual, Duala) is one of the

Yolŋu languages Yolŋu Matha (), meaning the 'Yolŋu tongue', is a linguistic family that includes the languages of the Yolngu (also known as the Yolŋu and Yuulngu languages), the Indigenous Australians, indigenous people of northeast Arnhem Land in northern ...

spoken by

Aboriginal Australians Aboriginal Australians are the various indigenous peoples of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland and many of its islands, excluding the ethnically distinct people of the Torres Strait Islands. Humans first migrated to Australia (co ...

in the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (abbreviated as NT; known formally as the Northern Territory of Australia and informally as the Territory) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian internal territory in the central and central-northern regi ...

, Australia. Although all Yolŋu languages are

mutually intelligible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between different but related language varieties in which speakers of the different varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. Mutual intellig ...

to some extent, Dhuwal represents a distinct

dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...

of eight separate varieties. In 2019, Djambarrpuyŋu became the first Indigenous language to be spoken in an Australian parliament, when Yolŋu man and member of the

Northern Territory Legislative Assembly The Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory (also known as the Parliament of the Northern Territory) is the unicameral legislature of Australia’s Northern Territory. The Legislative Assembly has 25 members, each elected in single-member ...

Yingiya Guyula gave a speech in his native tongue.

Dialects

According to linguist Robert M. W. Dixon, *Dialects of the Yirritja moiety are (a) Gupapuyngu and Gumatj; *Dialects of the Dhuwa moiety are (b) Djambarrpuyngu, Djapu, Liyagalawumirr, and Guyamirlili (Gwijamil). *In addition, it would appear that the Dhay'yi (Dayi) dialects, (a) Dhalwangu and (b) Djarrwark, are part of the same language. ''

Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensive catalogue of languages. It w ...

'' divides Dhuwal into four languages, plus Dayi and the contact variety Dhuwaya (numbers are from the 2006 census.): *Dhuwal proper, Datiwuy, Dhuwaya, Liyagawumirr, Marrangu, and Djapu: 600 speakers *Djampbarrpuyŋu, 2,760 speakers *Gumatj, 240 speakers *Gupapuyngu, 330 speakers *Dhay'yi (Dayi) and Dhalwangu, 170 speakers Dhuwaya is a stigmatised contact variant used by the younger generation in informal contexts, and is the form taught in schools, having replaced Gumatj ca. 1990.

Phonology

Consonants

Vowels

Vowel length is contrastive in first syllable only.

Orthography

Probably every Australian language with speakers remaining has had an orthography developed for it, in each case in the

Latin script The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is a writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae in Magna Graecia. The Gree ...

. Sounds not found in English are usually represented by

digraph Digraph, often misspelled as diagraph, may refer to: * Digraph (orthography), a pair of characters used together to represent a single sound, such as "nq" in Hmong RPA * Ligature (writing), the joining of two letters as a single glyph, such as " ...

s, or more rarely by

diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...

s, such as underlines, or extra symbols, sometimes borrowed from the

International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standard written representation ...

. Some examples are shown in the following table.

References

{{Languages of Australia Yolŋu languages Indigenous Australian languages in the Northern Territory