Gumatj language
| Dhuwal | |
|---|---|
| Dhay'yi | |
| Native to | Australia |
| Region | Northern Territory |
|
Native speakers
|
3,500 (2006 census) |
|
Pama–Nyungan
|
|
|
Standard forms
|
Dhuwaya
|
| Dialects |
|
| Yolŋu Sign Language | |
| Official status | |
|
Official language in
|
Northern Territory (as lingua franca for aborigines) |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Variously: dwu – Dhuwal djr – Djambarrpuyngu gnn – Gumatj guf – Gupapuyngu dax – Dayi (Dhay'yi) dwy – Dhuwaya |
| Glottolog |
dhuw1248 (Dhuwal-Dhuwala)dayi1244 (Dayi)
|
| AIATSIS |
N198* Dhuwal, N199* Dhuwala, N118 Dhay'yi |
Dhuwal (also Dual, Duala) is one of the Yolŋu languages spoken by Aboriginal Australians in the Northern Territory, Australia. Although all Yolŋu languages are mutually intelligible to some extent, Dhuwal represents a distinct dialect continuum of eight separate varieties.
Dialects of the Yirritja moiety are (a) Gupapuyngu and Gumatj; those 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.
Dhuwaya is a stigmatized contact variant used by the younger generation in informal contexts, and is the form taught in schools, having replaced Gumatj ca. 1990.
Probably every Australian language with speakers remaining has had an orthography developed for it, in each case in the Latin script. Sounds not found in English are usually represented by digraphs, or more rarely by diacritics, such as underlines, or extra symbols, sometimes borrowed from the International Phonetic Alphabet. Some examples are shown in the following table.
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Wikipedia