Ngalakan (Ngalakgan) 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 ...
of the
Ngalakgan
The Ngalakgan are an indigenous Australian people of the Northern Territory.
Language
Ngalakgan is generally classified as a member of the Gunwinyguan family.
Country
Ngalakgan territory covered an estimated , north of the Roper River as far ...
people. It has not been fully acquired by children since the 1930s.
It is one of the Northern
Non-Pama–Nyungan languages formerly spoken in the Roper river region of the
Northern Territory
The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory shares its borders with Western Aust ...
. It is most closely related to
Rembarrnga.
Sounds
Consonants
Ngalakan has a typical Australian consonant inventory, with many coronal places of articulation (see
Coronals in Indigenous Australian languages), including nasals at every stop place, and four liquids, but no fricatives. Baker (1999, 2008) analyses the language as having both geminate and singleton realizations of every plosive consonant. Merlan (1983), however, argues that there is a
fortis–lenis contrast, and thus two series of plosives rather than the one shown here. Lenis/short plosives have weak contact and intermittent voicing, while fortis/long plosives have full closure, a more powerful release burst, and no voicing. Similar contrasts are found in other
Gunwinyguan languages
The Gunwinyguan languages (Gunwinjguan, Gunwingguan), also core Gunwinyguan or Gunwinyguan proper, are a possible branch of a large language family of Australian Aboriginal languages in Arnhem Land, northern Australia. The most populous language ...
, such as
Bininj Kunwok
Bininj Kunwok is an Australian Aboriginal language which includes six dialects: Kunwinjku (formerly Gunwinggu), Kuninjku, Kundjeyhmi (formerly Gundjeihmi), Manyallaluk Mayali (Mayali), Kundedjnjenghmi, and two varieties of Kune (Kune Dulerayek a ...
,
Jawoyn,
Dalabon,
Rembarrnga,
Ngandi, as well as in the neighboring
Yolngu languages.
Vowels
Key features of the language
*
syntactically free, pragmatically determined word order
Free word order, with no syntactically governed positions for subject, object, verb etc. in a sentence. All this information is encoded in the morphology, which results in highly complex word structures. Interpreting these complex words correctly is crucial in determining what the speaker is trying to say.
*
Unlike most polysynthetic
In linguistic typology, polysynthetic languages, formerly holophrastic languages, are highly synthetic languages, i.e. languages in which words are composed of many morphemes (word parts that have independent meaning but may or may not be able to ...
languages, Ngalakgan is almost entirely agglutinating
An agglutinative language is a type of synthetic language with morphology that primarily uses agglutination. Words may contain different morphemes to determine their meanings, but all of these morphemes (including stems and affixes) tend to remai ...
*
Compounding
In the field of pharmacy, compounding (performed in compounding pharmacies) is preparation of a custom formulation of a medication to fit a unique need of a patient that cannot be met with commercially available products. This may be done for me ...
is a productive process in Ngalakan which applies to all major lexical categories: noun+adjective, noun+verb adverb+verb
*
suffixation for argument(ergative, genitive, dative) local semantic roles(locative, allative, ablative, perlative) and number.
[Brett J. Baker (2008).]
References
*
*
*
*
External links
Ngalakan basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database
{{Australian Aboriginal languages
Gunwinyguan languages