Jingulu language
| Jingulu | |
|---|---|
| Djingili | |
| Native to | Australia |
| Region | Barkly Tableland, Northern Territory |
|
Native speakers
|
11 fluent (2011), 43 (2006 census) |
|
Mirndi
|
|
| Djingili Sign Language | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | djin1251 |
| AIATSIS | C22 |
Jingulu (Djingili) is an Australian language spoken by the Jingili people in the Northern Territory of Australia, historically around the township of Elliot. It is an endangered language with only between 10 and 15 speakers in 1997, the youngest being in the fifties. An additional 20 people had some command of it. However, it was not used in daily communication which instead was conducted in either English or Kriol.
Jingulu has 3 vowels:
The close vowel /i/ may be realized as [i], [ɨ] or [e]; the close vowel /u/ most commonly as [u], but also [o] and [ɔ]; and the open vowel /a/ as [a], [ʌ], [æ] and [ə].
Vowel length is contrastive, resulting in the long vowels /aː/, /iː/ and /uː/. In orthography, /aː/ appears as ⟨aa⟩, while the other two appear with a homorganic consonant, ⟨iyi⟩ and ⟨uwu⟩, respectively.
An important feature of Jingulu's phonology is vowel harmony. Jingulu exhibits a regressive vowel harmony, which means that the vowels of nominal or verbal roots may be subject to change triggered by suffixes that contain a close vowel and that are directly adjacent to the root. The vowel harmony affects open vowels in the roots, which become close. Due to Jingulu's small inventory of vowels, it will always be the open vowel /a/ that is subject to change, always becoming /i/.
...
Wikipedia