Maung (Mawung, Mawng, Gun-marung) is an
Australian aboriginal 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
Maung people on the
Goulburn Islands, off the north coast of
Arnhem Land
Arnhem Land is a historical region of the Northern Territory of Australia, with the term still in use. It is located in the north-eastern corner of the territory and is around from the territory capital, Darwin. In 1623, Dutch East India Compan ...
, in the
Northern Territory of
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
. Maung is closely related to
Iwaidja language which occupies the northwestern corner of the opposite mainland. This is a language that belongs to the
Iwaidjan language family of
Non-Pama–Nyungan languages.
[Capell, A. & Hinch, H. E. 1970 Maung grammar; texts and vocabulary / A. Capell and H.E. Hinch Mouton, The Hague :] As of 2016, there were 370 speakers of the language.
Study of Maung has developed to the point where a dictionary, grammar and portions of the
Bible are available.
Maung is taught in local schools alongside
English and other languages such as
Iwaidja or
Kunwinjku. Children are still acquiring it as a
first language,
making it somewhat healthier than most other aboriginal languages.
Phonology
The phonemic inventories provided here are from Capell's well-known 1970 work on Maung.
More recent papers (Singer 2006;
[ Singer, R. 2006 Agreement in Mawng: Productive and lexicalised uses of agreement in an Australian language: The University of Melbourne Melbourne :] Teo 2007
[ Teo, A. 2007 Breaking up is hard to do: teasing apart morphological complexity in Iwaidja and Maung:]) have only two rhotics to Capell's three. Teo lacks the alveolar flap, and Singer the retroflex flap. (In a minor difference, both describe the approximant as retroflex, whereas Capell describes it as alveolar.)
Grammar
Maung has five
grammatical genders: masculine, feminine, vegetation, land, and edible.
Alternative names
* ''Kunmarung'' (
Kunwinjku exonym).
References
{{Australian Aboriginal languages
Iwaidjan languages