Wik Mungkan language

Wik-Mungkan
Wik-Mungknh
Native to Australia
Region Cape York Peninsula, Queensland
Native speakers
 450 (2016 census)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3 wim
Glottolog wikm1247[2]
AIATSIS[3] Y57

Wik-Mungkan, or Wik-Mungknh, is a Paman language spoken on the northern part of Cape York Peninsula of Queensland, Australia, by the Wik-Mungkan people.

Dixon thought there was a Wik-Iiyanh dialect, but it turned out to be the same as the Wik-Iiyanh dialect of Kugu Nganhcara.[3]

The English language has borrowed at least one word from Wik-Mungknh, that for the taipan, a species of venomous snake native to the region.[4]

A dictionary of Wik-Mungknh has been compiled by Christine Kilham.[5]

Phonology

Vowels

Front Central Back
High i u
Mid e o
Low a

Consonants

Peripheral Laminal Apical Glottal
Labial Velar Palatal Dental Alveolar
Stop p k c (ch) t̪ (th) t ʔ (')
Nasal m ŋ (ng) ɲ (ny) n̪ (nh) n
Lateral l
Rhotic r
Approximant w j (ɹ)

/ɹ/ does not appear frequently, only in some words. The same symbol for /r/ is used.[5]

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. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Wik-Mungkan". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  3. 1 2 Wik-Mungkan at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
  4. ↑ Sutton, Peter (1995). Wik-Ngathan Dictionary.
  5. 1 2 Kilham, Christine (1986). Dictionary and sourcebook of the Wik-Mungkan language.


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