Dhuwal language

Dhuwal
Dhay'yi
Native to Australia
Region Northern Territory
Native speakers
 5,171 (2016 census)[1]
Pama–Nyungan
Standard forms
Dhuwaya
Dialects
  • Gupapuyngu
  • Gumatj
  • Djambarrpuyngu
  • Djapu
  • Liyagalawumirr
  • Guyamirlili
  • Dhalwangu [Dhay'yi]
  • Djarrwark [Dhay'yi]
Yolŋu Sign Language
Official status
Official language in
 Northern Territory (as lingua franca for aborigines)[2]
Language codes
ISO 639-3 Variously:
dwu – Dhuwal
djr – Djambarrpuyngu
gnn – Gumatj
guf – Gupapuyngu
dax – Dayi (Dhay'yi)
dwy – Dhuwaya
Glottolog dhuw1248  Dhuwal-Dhuwala[3]
dayi1244  Dayi[4]
AIATSIS[5] 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

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.[6]

Ethnologue divides Dhuwal into four languages, plus Dayi and the contact variety Dhuwaya:

  • Dhuwal proper (Wulamba), Datiwuy, Dhuwaya, Liyagawumirr, Marrangu, and Djapu: 600 speakers
  • Djampbarrpuyŋu, 2,760 speakers
  • Gumatj, 240 speakers
  • Gupapuyngu, 330 speakers
  • Dhay'yi (Dayi) and Dhalwangu, 170 speakers

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.

Orthography

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.

Language Example Translation Type
Pitjantjatjara dialect of the Western Desert language paṉa 'earth, dirt, ground; land' diacritic (underline) indicates the retroflex nasal ([ɳ])
Wajarri nhanha 'this, this one' digraph indicating the dental nasal ([n̪])
Yolŋu languages yolŋu 'person, man' 'ŋ' represents the velar nasal (borrowed from the International Phonetic Alphabet)

References

  1. ↑ ABS. "Census 2016, Language spoken at home by Sex (SA2+)". stat.data.abs.gov.au. Australian Bureau of Statistics. Retrieved 2017-10-29.
  2. ↑ http://www.ethnologue.com/language/djr
  3. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Dhuwal-Dhuwala". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  4. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Dayi". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  5. ↑ Dhuwal at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies  (see the info box for additional links)
  6. ↑ Dixon, Robert M. W. (2002). Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development. Cambridge University Press. p. xxxvi. ISBN 978-0-521-47378-1.
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