Arrernte language
| Upper Arrernte | |
|---|---|
| Upper Arrernte | |
| Region | Northern Territory, Australia |
| Ethnicity | Aranda people |
|
Native speakers
|
4,000 (2005) to 5,500 (2006 census) |
|
Pama–Nyungan
|
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| Latin | |
| Aranda Sign Language | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Variously: amx – Anmatjirra aly – Alyawarr adg – Antekerrepenhe aer – Eastern Arrernte are – Western Arrernte axe – Ayerrerenge |
| Glottolog | aran1263 |
| AIATSIS |
C8 Arrernte, C14 Alyawarr, C8.1 Anmatyerre, C12 Antekerrepenh, G12 Ayerrerenge, C28* Akarre |
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Arrernte or Aranda (/ˈærəndə/;Arrernte [arəⁿɖə]) or more specifically Upper Arrernte (Upper Aranda), is a dialect cluster spoken in and around Alice Springs (Mparntwe in Arrernte) in the Northern Territory, Australia. The name is sometimes spelled Arunta or Arrarnta.
The varieties are as follows:
A Southern Arrernte (Pertame) is listed by Dixon, but not by Bowern, who also lumps together Central and Eastern.
There is much debate on whether these are dialects of an Arrernte language, or separate languages, both among linguists and among the Arrernte people themselves. Lower Arrernte, however, is clearly distinct.
/ɰ~ʁ/ is described as velar ([ɰ]) by Breen & Dobson (2005), and as uvular ([ʁ̞]) by Henderson (2003).
Stops are unaspirated. Prenasalized stops are voiced throughout; prestopped nasals are voiceless during the stop. These sounds arose as normal consonant clusters; Ladefoged states that they now occur initially, where consonant clusters are otherwise forbidden, due to historical loss of initial vowels; however, it has also been argued that such words start with a phonemic schwa, which may not be pronounced (see below).
All dialects have at least /ə a/.
The vowel system of Arrernte is unusual in that there are only two contrastive vowel phonemes, /a/ and /ə/. Two-vowel systems are very rare worldwide, but are also found in some Northwest Caucasian languages. It seems that the vowel system derives from an earlier one with more phonemes, but after the development of labialised consonants in the vicinity of round vowels, the vowels lost their roundedness/backness distinction, merging into just two phonemes. There is no allophonic variation in different consonantal contexts for the vowels. Instead, the phonemes can be realised by various different articulations in free variation. For example, the phoneme /ə/ can be pronounced [ɪ ~ e ~ ə ~ ʊ] in any context.
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