The Iwaidjan or Yiwaidjan languages are a small

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

of non-Pama–Nyungan

Australian Aboriginal languages 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 in the

Cobourg Peninsula The Cobourg Peninsula is located east of Darwin in the Northern Territory, Australia. It is deeply indented with coves and bays, covers a land area of about , and is virtually uninhabited with a population ranging from about 20 to 30 in five ...

region of Western

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 Compa ...

. In 1997

Nicholas Evans Nicholas Benbow Evans (26 July 1950 – 9 August 2022) was a British journalist, screenwriter, television and film producer and novelist. Biography Nicholas Benbow Evans was born in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, son of Anthony Evans, director of ...

proposed an Arnhem Land family that includes the Iwaidjan languages, though their inclusion is not accepted in Bowern (2011).

The Iwaidjan languages

Garig and Ilgar are two almost identical dialects. Manangkari may be a dialect of Maung. Dixon (2002) considers Warrkbi demonstrated, but Iwaidjic (Warrkbi-Maung) and Iwaidjan to be speculative. He predicts that working out the histories of the languages will be a "profound challenge", regardless of whether they are a genealogical family or a language area. Marrgu and Wurrugu, previously lumped in with Iwaidjan, have little in common with it and may turn out to be a separate family.

Status

As of 1998, Iwaidja was spoken by about 150 people in the community of

Minjilang Minjilang, formerly Mission Bay, is the Aboriginal community located on Croker Island, some east northeast of Northern Territory's capital of Darwin. It is the only settlement of any size on Croker Island, which lies a few kilometres off the ...

Croker Island Croker Island is an island in the Arafura Sea off the coast of the Northern Territory, Australia, northeast of Darwin. It was the site of the Croker Island Mission between 1940 and 1968. Indigenous peoples At the earliest time of European co ...

,Evans (1998): p. 115 alongside

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 ...

, Kunwinjku and Maung. Maung is primarily spoken in the community of

Warruwi Warruwi is a mostly Aboriginal community located on South Goulburn Island, off Arnhem Land, in the West Arnhem Region of the Northern Territory of Australia. It is north-east of Darwin and north-east of Jabiru. At the 2016 census, Warruw ...

Goulburn Island The Goulburn Islands are a group of small islands and islets in the Arafura Sea off the coast of Arnhem Land in Northern Territory of Australia. The largest islands are Weyirra (North Goulburn Island) and Warruwi (South Goulburn Island), where ...

, and it too has about 150 speakers. Both languages are still being learnt by children. More recent assessments of the status of Iwaidja and Maung are that both have around 200 speakers and are spoken daily by a full age range of people. All the other Iwaidjan languages are close to

extinction Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the Endling, last individual of the species, although the Functional ext ...

. , Amurdak had three remaining speakers and Garig and Ilgar three speakers between them. However, some of these languages have younger people who, while not fluent, can aid in translating old recordings in an attempt to archive or revive the language.

Phonology

The Iwaidjan languages have similar

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-wes ...

inventories. Exceptions are noted below the tables.

Vowels

In addition to these, Maung also has and , mostly in

loanword A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because ...

s from Kunwinjku and Kunbarlang.Evans (1998): p. 118.

Consonants

Maung lacks the two flapped laterals,Evans (1998): p. 118. which are quite unusual among Australian languages. Also unusual is the

velar Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum). Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive a ...

approximant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce ...

, which is an areal feature shared with Tiwi and Kunbarlang.

Relationships with other languages

The vocabularies of all the Iwaidjan languages contain

s from Macassarese and Malay,Evans (1998): p. 116. both

Malayo-Polynesian languages The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, with approximately 385.5 million speakers. The Malayo-Polynesian languages are spoken by the Austronesian peoples outside of Taiwan, in the island nations of Southeast ...

from

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Gui ...

. Iwaidja and Maung have also borrowed heavily from Kunwijku, another Australian language of the Gunwingguan family. While the Iwaidjan languages share a number of features with other non-Pama–Nyungan language families, it is uncertain which they are closest related to. Ross has proposed that they form part of an Arnhem Land family.

Vocabulary

Capell (1940)Capell, Arthur. 1940
The Classification of Languages in North and North-West Australia
''Oceania'' 10(3): 241-272, 404-433. lists the following basic vocabulary items (with Amarag words from Capell 1942Capell, Arthur. 1941-1942, 1942-1943
Languages of Arnhem Land, North Australia
''Oceania'' 12: 364-392, 13: 24-51.) The following basic vocabulary terms are collated from Capell (1940), Capell (1942), and Evans (2000): :

Notes

References

* *

External Links

Examples
of the Iwaidja language (many are text only out of respect for the dead) {{language families Language families Non-Pama-Nyungan languages Indigenous Australian languages in the Northern Territory