Kaurna ( or ) is a Pama-Nyungan language historically spoken by the

Kaurna The Kaurna people (, ; also Coorna, Kaura, Gaurna and other variations) are a group of Aboriginal people whose traditional lands include the Adelaide Plains of South Australia. They were known as the Adelaide tribe by the early settlers. Kaurn ...

peoples of the

Adelaide Plains The Adelaide Plains (Kaurna name Tarndanya) is a plain in South Australia lying between the coast (Gulf St Vincent) on the west and the Mount Lofty Ranges on the east. The southernmost tip of the plain is in the southern seaside suburbs of Ade ...

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

. The Kaurna peoples are made up of various tribal clan groups, each with their own ''parnkarra'' district of land and local dialect. These dialects were historically spoken in the area bounded by Crystal Brook and Clare in the north,

Cape Jervis Cape Jervis is a town in the Australian state of South Australia located near the western tip of Fleurieu Peninsula on the southern end of the Main South Road approximately south of the state capital of Adelaide. It is named after the headla ...

in the south, and just over the

Mount Lofty Ranges The Mount Lofty Ranges are a range of mountains in the Australian state of South Australia which for a small part of its length borders the east of Adelaide. The part of the range in the vicinity of Adelaide is called the Adelaide Hills and ...

. Kaurna ceased to be spoken on an everyday basis in the 19th century and the last known native speaker,

Ivaritji Ivaritji ( – 25 December 1929) also known as Amelia Taylor and Amelia Savage, was an elder of the Kaurna tribe of Aboriginal Australians from the Adelaide Plains in South Australia. She was "almost certainly the last person of full Kaurna a ...

, died in 1929.

Language revival Language revitalization, also referred to as language revival or reversing language shift, is an attempt to halt or reverse the decline of a language or to revive an extinct one. Those involved can include linguists, cultural or community groups, o ...

efforts began in the 1980s, with the language now frequently used for ceremonial purposes, such as

dual naming Dual naming is the adoption of an official place name that combines two earlier names, or uses both names, often to resolve a disagreement over which of the two individual names is more appropriate. In some cases, the reasons are political. Some ...

and

welcome to country A Welcome to Country is a ritual or formal ceremony performed as a land acknowledgement at many events held in Australia. It is intended to highlight the cultural significance of the surrounding area to the descendants of a particular Aborigina ...

ceremonies.

Classification

R. M. W. Dixon Robert Malcolm Ward "Bob" Dixon (born 25 January 1939, in Gloucester, England) is a Professor of Linguistics in the College of Arts, Society, and Education and The Cairns Institute, James Cook University, Queensland. He is also Deputy Director o ...

(2002) classified Kaurna as a

dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of Linguistics, linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety (linguisti ...

of the Kadli language, along with

Ngadjuri The Ngadjuri people are a group of Aboriginal Australian people whose traditional lands lie in the mid north of South Australia with a territory extending from Gawler in the south to Orroroo in the Flinders Ranges in the north. Name Their ethnon ...

Narungga The Narungga people, also spelt Narangga, are a group of Aboriginal Australians whose traditional lands are located throughout Yorke Peninsula, South Australia. Their traditional language, one of the Yura-Thura grouping, is Narungga. Country ...

, and

Nukunu Nukunu are an Aboriginal Australian people of South Australia, living around the Spencer Gulf area. In the years after British colonisation of South Australia, the area was developed to contain the cities of Port Pirie and Port Augusta. Name Bot ...

, and "Nantuwara", with ''kadli'' meaning "dog" in these varieties. However this name has not gained wide acceptance and is not recorded as a language in the AIATSIS AUSTLANG database.

Luise Hercus Luise Anna Hercus , , (16 January 1926 – 15 April 2018) was a German-born linguist who lived in Australia from 1954. After significant early work on Middle Indo-Aryan dialects (Prakrits) she had specialised in Australian Aboriginal languages si ...

and J. Simpson (2002, 2006) classify Kaurna as within the subgroup of

Thura-Yura languages The Yura or Thura-Yura languages are a group of Australian Aboriginal languages surrounding Spencer Gulf and Gulf St Vincent in South Australia, that comprise a genetic language family of the Pama–Nyungan family. Name The name ''Yura'' com ...

History of the name

The name "Kaurna" was not widely used until popularised by South Australian Museum

Ethnographer Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...

Norman B. Tindale in the 1920s. The term "Kaurna" was first recorded by Missionary Surgeon Dr

William Wyatt William Wyatt may refer to: * William Wyatt (cricketer) (1842–1908), English cricketer * William Wyatt (scholar) (1616–1685), English scholar *William Wyatt (settler) (1804–1886), Australian settler * William Wyatt (weightlifter) (1893–1989 ...

(1879: 24) for "Encounter Bay Bob's Tribe". At the same time he recorded "Meeyurna" for "

Onkaparinga Jack Rymill Park / Murlawirrapurka (previously spelt Mullawirraburka), and numbered as Park 14, is a recreation park located in the East Park Lands of the South Australian capital of Adelaide. There is an artificial lake with rowboats for hire, a ...

's Tribe". Kaurna most likely derives from ''kornar'', the word for "people" in the neighbouring Ramindjeri/ Ngarrindjeri language.

Mullawirraburka Rymill Park / Murlawirrapurka (previously spelt Mullawirraburka), and numbered as Park 14, is a recreation park located in the East Park Lands of the South Australian capital of Adelaide. There is an artificial lake with rowboats for hire, a ...

(Onkaparinga Jack, also known to the colonists as "King John"), was one of

Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...

missionaries

Christian Teichelmann Christian Gottlieb Teichelmann (15 December 1807 – 31 May 1888), also spelt Christian Gottlob Teichelmann, was a Lutheran missionary who worked among Australian Aboriginal people in South Australia. He was a pioneer in describing the Kaurna l ...

and

Clamor Schürmann Clamor may refer to: * ''Clamor'' (magazine), a bi-monthly magazine published in Toledo, Ohio * Clamor (ministry), a Christian youth outreach ministry in the U.S. and the Caribbean {{disambig ...

's main sources. Encounter Bay Bob, as his name suggests, came from

Encounter Bay Encounter Bay is a bay in the Australian state of South Australia located on the state's south central coast about south of the state capital of Adelaide. It was named by Matthew Flinders after his encounter on 8 April 1802 with Nicolas Baud ...

(Victor Harbor) and was most likely a fully initiated elder Ramindjeri man. Thus "Meyunna" is probably an

endonym An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, ...

and would linguistically be preferable as the name for this language group, as suggested in the mid-1990s. However, they are now universally known as the Kaurna people.

Name variants

Library of Congress Subject Headings The Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) comprise a thesaurus (in the information science sense, a controlled vocabulary) of subject headings, maintained by the United States Library of Congress, for use in bibliographic records. LC Subject ...

gives the following variant names (all followed by "language"): Adelaide; Coorna; Gauna; Gaurna; Gawurna; Kaura; Kawurna. The

Endangered Languages Project The Endangered Languages Project (ELP) is a worldwide collaboration between indigenous language organizations, linguists, institutions of higher education, and key industry partners to strengthen endangered languages. The foundation of the proj ...

names the following alternatives: Kaura, Coorna, Koornawarra, Nganawara, Kurumidlanta, Milipitingara, Widninga, Winnaynie, Meyu, Winaini, Winnay-nie, Wakanuwan, Adelaide tribe, Warra, Warrah, Karnuwarra, Jaitjawar:a, Padnaindi, Padnayndie, Medaindi, Medain-die, Merildekald, Merelde, Gaurna, Nantuwara, Nantuwaru, Meljurna, Midlanta.

Early records of the language

French explorer Joseph Paul Gaimard recorded the first wordlist of the language, containing 168 words, after calling in at the

Gulf St Vincent Gulf St Vincent, sometimes referred to as St Vincent Gulf, St Vincent's Gulf or Gulf of St Vincent, is the eastern of two large inlets of water on the southern coast of Australia, in the state of South Australia, the other being the larger Sp ...

en route to

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

in 1826, before the

colony of South Australia In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the '' metropolitan state'' ...

had been established. His sources were listed as Harry and Sally. Schürmann and Teichelmann, who ran a school at

Piltawodli The Adelaide Park Lands are the figure-eight of land spanning both banks of the River Torrens between Hackney and Thebarton and separating the City of Adelaide area (which includes both Adelaide city centre and North Adelaide) from the surro ...

, gained most of their knowledge of the language from three respected elders:

("King John" / "Onkaparinga Jack"), Kadlitpinna ("Captain Jack") and Ityamaiitpinna ("

grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structure, structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clause (linguistics), clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraint ...

, hundreds of phrases and sentences along with English translations, traditional songlines, and textual illustrations of differences among dialects. They also created Kaurna translations of six German hymns as well as the Ten Commandments. Other Europeans such as

, William Williams, (Also on Google Books.)

William Cawthorne Cawthorne and Co, also known as Cawthorne's Limited, was a company founded in 1870 in Adelaide, South Australia, by Charles Cawthorne and his father William Anderson Cawthorne (also known as W.A. Cawthorne), which dealt in musical instruments, s ...

and

Matthew Moorhouse Matthew Moorhouse (1813 – 29 March 1876) was an English Settler, pioneer in Australia, Pastoralism, pastoralist, politician, and Protector of Aborigines in South Australia. He was in charge of the armed party that murdered 30-40 Maraura people ...

were interested in the people and learnt some of the language; several wrote about the "Adelaide Tribe" in their memoirs. Williams created a list of 377 Kaurna words, published in the ''

Southern Australian ''The South Australian'' was a newspaper published in Adelaide, the capital of colonial South Australia from 2 June 1838 to 19 August 1851. Between 1838 and 1844, it was published as The ''Southern Australian.'' History ''The Southern Australia ...

'' on 15 May 1839 and republished in '' The South Australian Colonist'' on 14 July 1840. His work entitled ''A vocabulary of the language of the Aborigines of the Adelaide district, and other friendly tribes, of the Province of South Australia'' was self-published in 1839, to be sold in London as well as Adelaide. Others who recorded some knowledge of Kaurna included James Cronk,

Walter Bromley Walter Henry Bromley (c. 1774 – c. 5 May 1838) was a British military officer and reformer who founded a school in Halifax, Nova Scotia and did much good work among children of poorer families including, especially, indigenous Canadians. He lat ...

George Augustus Robinson George Augustus Robinson (22 March 1791 – 18 October 1866) was a British-born colonial official and self-trained preacher in colonial Australia. In 1824, Robinson travelled to Hobart, Van Diemen’s Land, where he attempted to negotiate ...

, Hermann Koeler, Louis Piesse, Edward Stephens and James Chittleborough. In the 19th century, there was also a Kaurna-based

pidgin A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified means of communication that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn from s ...

used as a contact language. The former range of the language was mapped by

Norman Tindale Norman Barnett Tindale AO (12 October 1900 – 19 November 1993) was an Australian anthropologist, archaeologist, entomologist and ethnologist. Life Tindale was born in Perth, Western Australia in 1900. His family moved to Tokyo and lived ther ...

and later Robert Amery, and is managed by the Kaurna people.

Language revival

Kaurna had not been spoken as a native language since the Kaurna people had been pushed out of their traditional lands since the

colonisation of South Australia British colonisation of South Australia describes the planning and establishment of the colony of South Australia by the British government, covering the period from 1829, when the idea was raised by the then-imprisoned Edward Gibbon Wakefield ...

in the 19th century, with the population in decline due to various factors.

(1849 – 1929) was the last known speaker, but it was probably last only widely spoken in the early 1860s. In the 1980s, Kaurna people who had moved back into the

area began to learn and use their language again. Robert Amery, head of Linguistics at the

University of Adelaide The University of Adelaide (informally Adelaide University) is a public research university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third-oldest university in Australia. The university's main campus is located on N ...

, who has devoted much of his life and career to Indigenous languages, in particular Kaurna: "After more than 25 years of painstaking effort, there are now several Kaurna people who can conduct a conversation in Kaurna without resorting to English too quickly, and we are seeing the first semi-native speakers of Kaurna emerging." Kaurna is now frequently used to give Welcomes to Country. Sustained efforts to revive the language in from 1989 included the writing of several Kaurna songs originally written in the

Ngarrindjeri The Ngarrindjeri people are the traditional Aboriginal Australian people of the lower Murray River, eastern Fleurieu Peninsula, and the Coorong of the southern-central area of the state of South Australia. The term ''Ngarrindjeri'' means "belo ...

and Kaurna languages. A second songbook, ''Kaurna Paltinna'', was published in 1999. Following one-off workshops in 1990 and 1991, a Kaurna language program was introduced into Kaurna Plains School in 1992. Elizabeth City High School and Elizabeth West Adult Campus introduced the teaching of the language in 1994, and other schools have followed suit.

TAFE Technical and further education or simply TAFE (), is the common name in English-speaking countries in Oceania for vocational education, as a subset of tertiary education. TAFE institutions provide a wide range of predominantly vocational cours ...

courses to train Kaurna language teachers were developed by Mary-Anne Gale. Kaurna linguistics courses have been taught at the

since 1997. and both Kaurna and non-Kaurna have been studying and speaking the language. The records compiled by Teichelmann and Schürmann in the 1840s have proven valuable in projects to reconstruct the language. The ''Kaurna Learners' Guide'' (''Kulurdu Marni Ngathaitya'') was published in 2013, and Kaurna radio shows have been broadcast since 2012. The Kaurna Dictionary Project at the

, funded by a federal government grant, is under way to revise the spellings. Amery has been overseeing much of the work. It is intended that the final version will be released in print and in electronic form, including a

phone app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on desk ...

. In 2021, a printed Kaurna dictionary was published, as well as a Ngarrindjeri one. Amery and his wife, Ngarrindjeri linguist Mary-Anne Gale, have helped to drive the project. The first students of courses specially tailored to the teaching of Aboriginal language, run by Tauondi Aboriginal College in

Port Adelaide Port Adelaide is a port-side region of Adelaide, approximately northwest of the Adelaide CBD. It is also the namesake of the City of Port Adelaide Enfield council, a suburb, a federal and state electoral division and is the main port for the ...

, enabling those who have learnt the language to pass on their skills to communities, graduated in July 2021. With the teachers and students often in the older age group, by July 2022 two of the first graduates had died. There is a need for more funding and more teachers.

Kaurna Warra Pintyanthi

Kaurna Warra Pintyanthi The University of Adelaide (informally Adelaide University) is a public research university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third-oldest university in Australia. The university's main campus is located on N ...

(meaning "creating Kaurna language") is a group developing and promoting the recovery of the Kaurna language. It was established in 2002 by two Kaurna elders, Lewis Yerloburka O'Brien and Alitya Wallara Rigney, and linguist Robert Amery. The group now includes other Kaurna people, teachers, linguists and language enthusiasts. It was created from a series of workshops funded by a

grant in 2000, and is hosted by the department of linguistics at the University of Adelaide. KWP-run language classes through both the Kaurna Plains School and the university. KWP has created a uniform dialect of the language, making new words such as ''mukarntu'' (''mukamuka'' brain + ''karntu'' lightning), meaning "computer", and other words for things such as modern appliances, transportation, cuisine, and other common features of life that have changed for the Kaurna people while the language was dormant. The Kaurna Warra Karrpanthi Aboriginal Corporation (KWK) was registered in 2013 to support the reclamation and promotion of the language of the Kaurna nation, including training and teaching.

Dictionary

In 2022 a

dictionary A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies ...

written by Rob Amery and co-authors Susie Greenwood and Jasmin Morley was published. It includes not only the words included on the handwritten lists made by Teichelmann and Schürmann 160 years earlier, but also 4,000 new words that were created in consultation with local elders and Kaurna speakers. The cover was designed by Kaurna artist Katrina Karlapina Power. Entitled ''Kaurna Warrapiipa, Kaurna Dictionary'', the dictionary contains translations both ways (Kaurna and

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

). and is published by Wakefield Press.

Kaurna names

Renaming and dual naming

Efforts to reintroduce Kaurna names, beginning in 1980 with the naming of Warriappendi School, in 1980 by Auntie Leila Rankine, have been made within the public domain. Since the

Adelaide City Council The City of Adelaide, also known as the Corporation of the City of Adelaide and Adelaide City Council is a local government area in the metropolitan area of greater Adelaide, South Australia and is legally defined as the capital city of Sout ...

drew up a Reconciliation Vision Statement in 1997, they committed to a

project, working with Kaurna Warra Pintyanthi, to cover the

city centre A city centre is the commercial, cultural and often the historical, political, and geographic heart of a city. The term "city centre" is primarily used in British English, and closely equivalent terms exist in other languages, such as "" in Fren ...

and

North Adelaide North Adelaide is a predominantly residential precinct and suburb of the City of Adelaide in South Australia, situated north of the River Torrens and within the Adelaide Park Lands. History Surveyor-General Colonel William Light of the colo ...

, including the five

public square A town square (or square, plaza, public square, city square, urban square, or ''piazza'') is an open public space, commonly found in the heart of a traditional town but not necessarily a true square, geometric square, used for community gathe ...

s and

Adelaide park lands The Adelaide Park Lands are the figure-eight of land spanning both banks of the River Torrens between Hackney and Thebarton and separating the City of Adelaide area (which includes both Adelaide city centre and North Adelaide) from the surro ...

. Victoria Square, in the centre of Adelaide city, is now also known as ''Tarntanyangga'', all 29 Parks around the city have been assigned a Kaurna name, and the

River Torrens The River Torrens , (Karrawirra Parri / Karrawirraparri) is the most significant river of the Adelaide Plains. It was one of the main reasons for the siting of the city of Adelaide, capital of South Australia. It flows from its source in the ...

is now also named ''Karrawirra Parri''. The renaming of 39 sites was finalised and endorsed by the council in 2012. Others include Piltawodli (now

Pirltawardli The Adelaide Park Lands are the figure-eight of land spanning both banks of the River Torrens between Hackney and Thebarton and separating the City of Adelaide area (which includes both Adelaide city centre and North Adelaide) from the surro ...

), "

brushtail possum The brushtail possums are the members of the genus ''Trichosurus'' in the Phalangeridae, a family of marsupials. They are native to Australia (including Tasmania) and some small nearby islands. Unique among marsupials, they have shifted the hypax ...

home"; Warriparringga (

Warriparinga Warriparinga, also spelt Warriparingga, (meaning ''Windy Place'' in the local Kaurna language) is a nature reserve comprising in the metropolitan suburb of Bedford Park, in the southern suburbs of Adelaide, South Australia. Also known as Fairfo ...

) "windy river place". The full list of square and park names, along with meanings and pronunciations, is available on the Council website. Between 1980 and 2012, around 1000 entities were assigned Kaurna names, including people, pets, organisations, buildings, parks, walking trails, an

allele An allele (, ; ; modern formation from Greek ἄλλος ''állos'', "other") is a variation of the same sequence of nucleotides at the same place on a long DNA molecule, as described in leading textbooks on genetics and evolution. ::"The chro ...

(a hereditary gene or chromosome), brand names, and the Kari Munaintya tram and Tindo solar bus. Some place names are known from historical sources, but not officially used as yet, such as Patpangga (

Rapid Bay Rapid Bay is a locality that includes a small seaside town and bay on the west coast of the Fleurieu Peninsula, South Australia. It lies within the District Council of Yankalilla and its township is approximately 100 km south of the stat ...

) "in the south"; Pattawilyangga (Patawalonga, Glenelg) "swamp gum foliage"; and Yertabulti (

). Public artworks, beginning in 1995 with the Yerrakartarta installation outside the Intercontinental Hotel on

North Terrace, Adelaide North Terrace is one of the four terraces that bound the central business and residential district of Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia. It runs east–west, along the northern edge of "the square mile". The western end cont ...

, have also incorporated words, phrases and text drawn from the Kaurna language, and the universities and other organisations have also taken on Kaurna names. The

Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute The Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute, usually referred to as Tandanya, is an art museum located on Grenfell Street in Adelaide, South Australia. It specialises in promoting Indigenous Australian art, including visual art, music an ...

uses the original name for Adelaide. The annual

Tarnanthi Tarnanthi (pronounced tar-nan-dee) is a Festival of Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art held in Adelaide, South Australia, annually. Presented by the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA) in association with the South Austral ...

Festival of Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art takes its name from the Kaurna word meaning "to rise, come forth, spring up or appear".

Other Kaurna-derived names

Many prominent South Australian place names are drawn from the Kaurna language: * Kauandilla ( Cowandilla) from ''kauanda'' meaning "north" plus locative suffix ''-illa''; * Kanggarilla (

Kangarilla Kangarilla is a small rural town and locality around from Adelaide city centre, in South Australia. The area, formerly inhabited by Kaurna people, was settled by Europeans in 1840, not long after the British colonisation of South Australia. Tod ...

) from ''kanggari'' meaning "shepherding" plus locative suffix ''-illa''; * Kondoparinga possibly from ''kundo'' meaning "chest" plus ''parri'' meaning "river" plus locative suffix ''-ngga''; * Maitpangga ( Myponga); * Ngaltingga ( Aldinga) from ''ngalti'' (meaning unknown) plus locative suffix ''-ngga''; * Ngangkiparringga ( Onkaparinga) from ''nganki'' meaning "woman" plus ''parri'' meaning "river" plus locative suffix ''-ngga''; * Nurlongga ( Noarlunga) ''nurlo'' meaning "corner/curavature" plus locative suffix ''-ngga'', probably in reference to Horseshoe Bend on the

Onkaparinga River The Onkaparinga River, known as Ngangkiparri or Ngangkiparingga ("place of the women’s river") in the Kaurna language, is a river located in the Southern Adelaide region in the Australian state of South Australia. Rising in the Mount Lofty Ran ...

; *

Patawalonga The Patawalonga River is a river located in the western suburbs of the Adelaide metropolitan area, in the Australian state of South Australia. It drains an area of flat, swampy lands formerly known as the Cowandilla Plains or The Reedbeds, which ...

from ''patta'', a species of gum tree (possibly the swamp gum), plus ''wilya'' meaning "foliage" plus locative suffix ''-ngga''; * Waitpingga ( Waitpinga) meaning "wind place" * Willangga ( Willunga) * Wilyaru ( Willyaroo) meaning a fully initiated adult man. * Yatala most likely from ''yartala'' meaning "water running by the side of a river; inundation; cascade". * Yernkalyilla ( Yankalilla) 'place of the fallen bits' * Yurridla (

Uraidla Uraidla (, ) is a small town in the Adelaide Hills of South Australia, Australia. At the , Uraidla had a population of 575. However it also sits at the centre of a larger population catchment of rural townships which include Summertown, Piccad ...

) meaning "two ears", derived from a dreaming story in which the

are the body of a giant. English-Kaurna hybridised placenames include: *

Glenunga Glenunga is an List of Adelaide suburbs, inner southeastern suburb of Adelaide, the capital of South Australia. It is located in the City of Burnside, five kilometres southeast of the Adelaide city centre. The name Glenunga is a composite of Au ...

from

Scots language Scots ( endonym: ''Scots''; gd, Albais, ) is an Anglic language variety in the West Germanic language family, spoken in Scotland and parts of Ulster in the north of Ireland (where the local dialect is known as Ulster Scots). Most commonly ...

''glen'' and Kaurna locative suffix ''-ngga''. * Paracombe from ''para'' meaning "river/stream" and English language ''combe'' meaning "narrow way". Similar to South Australia's 'Picadilly', there exists a direct analogue in England,

Parracombe Parracombe is a rural settlement south-west of Lynton, in Devon, England. It is situated in the Heddon Valley, on Exmoor. The population at the 2011 census was 293. A number Bronze Age barrows exist nearby, along with several other small ear ...

in Devon, which likely contributed to the adoption of the name. Possible Kaurna placenames include: *

Piccadilly Piccadilly () is a road in the City of Westminster, London, to the south of Mayfair, between Hyde Park Corner in the west and Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is part of the A4 road that connects central London to Hammersmith, Earl's Court, ...

. Although usually assumed to be named after

Piccadilly, London Piccadilly () is a road in the City of Westminster, London, to the south of Mayfair, between Hyde Park Corner in the west and Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is part of the A4 road that connects central London to Hammersmith, Earl's Court, ...

, it is likely to be an

anglicisation Anglicisation is the process by which a place or person becomes influenced by English culture or British culture, or a process of cultural and/or linguistic change in which something non-English becomes English. It can also refer to the influen ...

of the Kaurna ''pikodla'' meaning "two eyebrows", being a part of the same dreaming story that gave rise to "Uraidla". * Yankalilla. Although almost certainly an Indigenous word, there are conflicting etymologies. The most likely is that it is derived from the

Ramindjeri The Ramindjeri or Raminjeri people were an Aboriginal Australian people forming part of the ''Kukabrak'' grouping now otherwise known as the Ngarrindjeri people. They were the most westerly Ngarrindjeri, living in the area around Encounter Bay an ...

''yangaiake'' meaning "hill", but with the Kaurna locative suffix ''-illa'', or possibly ''yernkalyilla'' meaning "place of the fallen bits".

Phonology

Vowels

Kaurna has three different vowels with contrastive long and short lengths (a, i, u, a:, i:, u:), and three diphthongs (ai, au, ui). The three main vowels are represented by ⟨a⟩, ⟨i⟩ and ⟨u⟩ respectively, with long vowels indicated by doubling the vowel. Historically, Kaurna has had ⟨e⟩ and ⟨o⟩ used varyingly in older versions of its orthography, but these are not reflected in the phonology of the language.

Consonants

The consonant inventory of Kaurna is similar to that of other Pama-Nyungan languages (compare with

Adnyamathanha The Adnyamathanha (Pronounced: ) are a contemporary Aboriginal Australian people of the northern Flinders Ranges, South Australia, formed as an aggregate of several distinct peoples. Strictly speaking the ethnonym Adnyamathanha was an alternativ ...

, in the same Thura-Yura grouping). In the orthography, dental consonants are followed by ⟨h⟩ and palatals by ⟨y⟩, and retroflex consonants are preceded by ⟨r⟩, with the exception of ⟨rd⟩ . Pre-stopped consonants are preceded by ⟨d⟩. Below are the consonants of Kaurna (Amery, R & Simpson, J 2013).

Phonotactics

* All words must begin with a

peripheral A peripheral or peripheral device is an auxiliary device used to put information into and get information out of a computer. The term ''peripheral device'' refers to all hardware components that are attached to a computer and are controlled by the ...

laminal A laminal consonant is a phone (speech sound) produced by obstructing the air passage with the blade of the tongue, the flat top front surface just behind the tip of the tongue in contact with upper lip, teeth, alveolar ridge, to possibly, as ...

consonant (see

Consonants In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wit ...

above), excluding the pre-stopped nasals. * All words must end with a vowel. * In addition to the pre-stopped consonants, consonant clusters of a nasal followed by a stop are allowed.

Prosody

Kaurna places primary stress on the first syllable.

Grammar

Kaurna has relatively

free word order In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how different languages employ different orders. C ...

Nouns

Noun cases and suffixes

Kaurna uses a range of suffixed case markers to convey information including subjects, objects, spacio-temporal state and other such information. These sometimes have variations in pronunciation and spelling. Below is a table of some of these cases.

Number

Kaurna has 3 numbers: singular, dual (-rla, -dla) and plural (-rna).

References

Citations

General references

* Amery, Rob (compiler) (2003) ''Warra Kaurna. A Resource for Kaurna Language Programs.'' Kaurna Warra Pintyandi, Adelaide. * Amery, Rob (2002) 'Weeding out Spurious Etymologies: Toponyms on the Adelaide Plains.' In Luise Hercus, Flavia Hodges & Jane Simpson (eds) ''The Land is a Map: Placenames of Indigenous Origin in Australia'', 165-180. * * Wyatt, William (1879) ''Some Account of the Manners and Superstitions of the Adelaide and Encounter Bay Aboriginal Tribes with a Vocabulary of their Languages.''

External links

David Unaipon College of Indigenous Education and Research
at the

University of South Australia The University of South Australia (UniSA) is a public research university in the Australian state of South Australia. It is a founding member of the Australian Technology Network of universities, and is the largest university in South Australi ...

Kaurna – English Dictionary
University of Adelaide
Kaurna Warra Pintyanthi
{{Pama–Nyungan languages, South Thura-Yura languages Culture of Adelaide *