Nyangumarta language
| Nyangumarta | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Australia |
| Region | Western Australia |
|
Native speakers
|
250 (2005) to 310 (2006 census) |
|
Pama–Nyungan
|
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | nyan1301 |
| AIATSIS | A61 |
Nyangumarta is a language spoken by the Nyangumarta people and other Indigenous Australians in the region of Western Australia to the south and east of Lake Waukarlykarly, including Eighty Mile Beach, and part of the Great Sandy Desert inland to near Telfer. There are believed to be about 520 first-language speakers of Nyangumarta and many more partial speakers. It is also the most widely spoken Aboriginal language in the town of Port Hedland.
Nyangumarta is a member of the Marrngu branch of the Pama–Nyungan languages. The other members of this group are Mangarla and Karajarri, with which it shares features and vocabulary.
Nyangumarta has two main dialects: Ngurlipartu, spoken in the southern, inland region, and Wanyarli, spoken in the northern, coastal region.
Nyangumarta has a typical Australian phoneme inventory, with a large number of consonant phonemes, including multiple lateral and rhotic phonemes, but few vowel phonemes.
There are 17 consonant phonemes in Nyangumarta, with 5 pairs of homorganic plosives and nasals.
There are no voicing contrasts in Nyangmurta.
Allophones of the consonants tend to vary in manner of articulation rather than place of articulation- e.g. plosives are usually voiceless word-initially, but voiced intervocalically and following nasals, and some plosives have fricative allophones.
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