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 people of northeast Arnhem Land in northern Australia. The ''ŋ' ...

spoken by

Aboriginal Australians Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the T ...

in 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 Au ...

, Australia. Although all Yolŋu languages are mutually intelligible to some extent, Dhuwal represents a distinct

dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated varie ...

of eight separate varieties.

Dialects

According to linguist

Robert 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 ...

, *Dialects of the Yirritja

moiety Moiety may refer to: Chemistry * Moiety (chemistry), a part or functional group of a molecule ** Moiety conservation, conservation of a subgroup in a chemical species Anthropology * Moiety (kinship), either of two groups into which a society is ...

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'' 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 Roman script, is an alphabetic 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 Greece, Greek city of Cumae, in southe ...

. Sounds not found in English are usually represented by digraphs, 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 ''diacriti ...

s, such as underlines, or extra symbols, sometimes borrowed from the International Phonetic Alphabet. Some examples are shown in the following table.

References

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