Nyangumarta, also written Njaŋumada, Njangamada, Njanjamarta and other variants, is a language spoken by the

Nyangumarta people The Nyangumarta people, also written Njaŋumada, Njangamada, Njanjamarta and other variations, are a nation of Aboriginal Australians from the northwestern coast of Western Australia. According to Norman Tindale, they are divided into two distinc ...

and other

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

in the region of

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

to the south and east of Lake Waukarlykarly, including

Eighty Mile Beach Eighty Mile Beach, also spelled Eighty-mile Beach or 80-mile Beach, lies along the north-west coast of Western Australia about half-way between the towns of Broome and Port Hedland. It is a beach some in length, forming the coastline where t ...

, and part of the

Great Sandy Desert The Great Sandy Desert is an interim Australian bioregion,IBRA Version 6.1
data

inland to near Telfer. As of 2016 there were an estimated 211 speakers of Nyangumarta, down from a 1975 estimate of 1000. It has two dialects: Ngurlipartu and Wanyarli. It is the most widely spoken Aboriginal language in the town of

Port Hedland A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Ham ...

Classification

Nyangumarta is a member of the Marrngu branch of the

Pama–Nyungan languages The Pama–Nyungan languages are the most widespread family of Australian Aboriginal languages, containing 306 out of 400 Aboriginal languages in Australia. The name "Pama–Nyungan" is a merism: it derived from the two end-points of the range: ...

. The other members of this group are Mangarla and

Karajarri The Karajarri are an Aboriginal Australian people, who once lived south-west of the Kimberleys in the northern Pilbara region, predominantly between the coastal area and the Great Sandy Desert. They now mostly reside at Bidyadanga, south of B ...

, with which it shares features and vocabulary.

Geographic distribution

Dialects

Nyangumarta has two main dialects: Ngurlipartu, spoken in the southern, inland region, and Wanyarli, spoken in the northern, coastal region.

Phonology

Nyangumarta has a typical Australian

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-west o ...

inventory, with many consonant phonemes, including multiple

lateral Lateral is a geometric term of location which may refer to: Healthcare *Lateral (anatomy), an anatomical direction *Lateral cricoarytenoid muscle *Lateral release (surgery), a surgical procedure on the side of a kneecap Phonetics *Lateral cons ...

and rhotic phonemes, but few vowel phonemes.

Consonants

There are 17 consonant phonemes in Nyangumarta, with five pairs of

homorganic In phonetics, a homorganic consonant (from ''homo-'' "same" and ''organ'' "(speech) organ") is a consonant sound that is articulated in the same place of articulation as another. For example, , and are homorganic consonants of one another since ...

plosives and nasals. There are no voicing contrasts in Nyangmurta.

Allophones In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in ''s ...

of the consonants tend to vary in

manner of articulation In articulatory phonetics, the manner of articulation is the configuration and interaction of the articulators (speech organs such as the tongue, lips, and palate) when making a speech sound. One parameter of manner is ''stricture,'' that is, h ...

rather than

place of articulation In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a consonant is a location along the vocal tract where its production occurs. It is a point where a constriction is made between an active and a passive articula ...

– e.g.

plosives In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lips ...

are usually voiceless word-initially, but voiced intervocalically and following nasals, and some plosives have

fricative A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...

allophones.

Vowels

There are 3 contrastive vowels in Nyangmarta. Nyangmurta does not contrast

roundedness In phonetics, vowel roundedness is the amount of rounding in the lips during the articulation of a vowel. It is labialization of a vowel. When a ''rounded'' vowel is pronounced, the lips form a circular opening, and ''unrounded'' vowels are pron ...

length Length is a measure of distance. In the International System of Quantities, length is a quantity with dimension distance. In most systems of measurement a base unit for length is chosen, from which all other units are derived. In the Interna ...

in vowels.

Syllable Structure

Monosyllabic In linguistics, a monosyllable is a word or utterance of only one syllable. It is most commonly studied in the fields of phonology and morphology and it has no semantic content. The word has originated from the Greek language. "Yes", "no", "jump", ...

words are permitted in Nyangumarta, but they must be at least bimoraic, with short vowels and consonants each counting as one mora, and long vowels as two. All words must begin with a consonant, although, if the initial consonant is a glide followed by its matching vowel .e. a sequence of /ji/ or /wu/the glide may be dropped by some speakers. Additionally, word-initial consonant clusters are not permitted in this language, except when a cluster is created through a process of vowel

elision In linguistics, an elision or deletion is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase. However, these terms are also used to refer more narrowly to cases where two words are run toget ...

Morphology

Words in Nyangumarta are generally sorted into two major word classes: nominals, which take marking for case and number, and verbs, which take marking for Tense, aspect, and mood. In addition to these two, there are also small closed classes of particles, exclamations, and clitics. As is typical of Pama-Nyungan languages, Nyangamurta uses suffixes to show case, person, number, TAM. Nyangumarta has three numbers: singular, dual, and plural, with dual and plural 1st person marked for

clusivity In linguistics, clusivity is a grammatical distinction between ''inclusive'' and ''exclusive'' first-person pronouns and verbal morphology, also called ''inclusive " we"'' and ''exclusive "we"''. Inclusive "we" specifically includes the addressee ...

. Unusually for a language of the Pilbara region,Blake, Barry J. (1977). ''Case marking in Australian languages''. Canberra. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies Nyangumarta has pronominal suffixes that attach to the verb in addition to independent pronouns. Many Nyangumarta verbs are so-called complex verbs, formed out of a "pre-verb" (usually a nominal) plus an inflected stem, which combine to form a verb with a new meaning Some nominals are bound, and have no meaning independent of their use in complex verbs Nyangumarta uses a

split ergative In linguistic typology, split ergativity is a feature of certain languages where some constructions use ergative syntax and morphology, but other constructions show another pattern, usually nominative–accusative. The conditions in which ergat ...

system of alignment: while case marking is done on an ergative-absolutive basis, pronouns (including pronominal marking on verbs) use a nominative-accusative system Simple verbs mostly fall into two major classes, NY-class and RN-class. The NY class is intransitive and the RN class is (mostly) transitive. There are also a few verb roots that encode a semantic distinction by alternating between the classes (e.g. ''jupa-NY'', 'diminish' and ''jupa-RN'', 'extinguish'). Most Nyangumarta verbs are complex verbs, or verbs formed from derivation or compounding. Nyangumarta has a causative ''-ma-RN'', an affective ''-ji-RN'', and a verbalizer ''-pi-RN'' which adds no particular meaning to the verb. Of these, ''-ma-RN'' and ''-pi-RN'' can only be used with a nominal.

Clause structure

Nyangumarta creates subordinate clauses through nominalization of verbs. There are fundamentally two types of subordinate clause: the purpose clause and the relative clause. Purpose causes denote why or for what purpose an action occurred, and are marked by dative marking on the nominalized verb. Relative clauses denote either a shared time frame (T-type relative clause) or a shared argument (NP-type relative clause) between the main and subordinate clauses, and are marked by ablative marking on the nominalized verb. Additional case markers (dative, accusative, and locative) can be added on along with the ablative to produce more specific effects. However, in many cases what is accomplished in other languages by subordination is accomplished in Nyangumarta with clause conjunction.

References

Source

* Janet Catherine Sharp. (2004). ''Nyangumarta, A Language of the Pilbara Region of Western Australia''. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics {{Pama–Nyungan languages, West Pama–Nyungan languages Nyangumarta