Gooniyandi 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 ...
now spoken by about 200 people, most of whom live in or near
Fitzroy Crossing in
Western Australia
Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...
.
[ Gooniyandi is an ]endangered language
An endangered language or moribund language is a language that is at risk of disappearing as its speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages. Language loss occurs when the language has no more native speakers and becomes a " dead langua ...
as it is not being passed on to children,
Classification
Gooniyandi is closely related to Bunuba, to about the same degree as English is related to Dutch. The two are the only members of the Bunuban language family. Unlike the majority of Australian Aboriginal languages, Gooniyandi and Bunuba are non-Pama–Nyungan.
Phonology
Gooniyandi has three vowel sounds: /a, i, u/. /a/ has contrastive vowel length.
Orthography
A Gooniyandi alphabet based on the Latin script
The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is a 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 Greek city of Cumae in Magna Graecia. The Gree ...
was adopted by the community in 1984, and subsequently revised in 1990 and again in 1999.[ It is not ]phonemic
A phoneme () is any set of similar speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word from another. All languages con ...
, as it omits some distinctions made in speech.[
]
Grammar
Gooniyandi has no genders, but a large number of cases; it uses an ergative-absolutive case system. It is a verb-final language, but without a dominant order between the subject and the object.
Notes
References
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External links
Gooniyandi on the Omniglot websiteRosetta Project: Gooniyandi Swadesh ListGooniyandi Aboriginal Corporation
{{Australian Aboriginal languages
Bunuban languages
Kimberley (Western Australia)
Endangered indigenous Australian languages in Western Australia