Jaminjung language

Jaminjung is a moribund Australian language spoken around the Victoria River in the Northern Territory of Australia. There seems to be a steady increase in the number of speakers of the language with very few people speaking the language in 1967, about 30 speakers in 1991, and between 50 and 150 speakers in 2000.^[4][1]

Jaminjung
Native to	Australia
Region	Victoria River (Northern Territory)
Native speakers	29 (2016)[1]
Language family	Mirndi Yirram Jaminjung
Dialects	Ngaliwuru
Language codes
ISO 639-3	djd
Glottolog	djam1255
AIATSIS[2]	N18 Jaminjung, N19 Ngaliwurru
ELP	Jaminjung
	Ngaliwurru[3]
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In 1971, Frances Kofod and others published a grammar of the Ngaliwuru language,^[5] while in 2011 a book of Jaminjung & Ngaliwuru names and uses of plants & animals was published.^[6]

Phonology

Vowels

Jaminjung has 4 vowels:^[7]

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i /i/		u /u/
Close-mid	e /e/
Open		a /a/

Vowel length is not distinctive. The close-mid vowel /e/ only appears in a small number of words, and is probably a loan from surrounding languages.^[7]

Consonants

Jaminjung has 18 consonants:^[7]

	Peripheral		Laminal		Apical
	Bilabial	Velar	Palatal	Dental	Alveolar	Retroflex
Plosive	p /p/	k /k/	j /c/	th /t̪/	t /t/	rt /ʈ /
Nasal	m /m/	ng /ŋ/	ny /ɲ/		n /n/	rn /ɳ /
Trill					rr /r/
Approximant			ly /ʎ/		l /l/	rl /ɭ /
	w /w/		y /j/		r /ɻ /

External links

• A corpus of Jaminjung recordings is archived with the DOBES project.

References

Notes

1. Jaminjung at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
2. N18 Jaminjung at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies  (see the info box for additional links)
3. Endangered Languages Project data for Ngaliwurru.
4. Schultze-Berndt 2000, pp. 13–14
5. Bolt, Janet E.; Hoddinott, William G.; Kofod, Frances M. (1971). An Elementary Grammar of the Ngaliwuru Language of the Northern Territory. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.
6. Jones et al. 2011
7. Schultze-Berndt 2000, p. 41

General

• Schultze-Berndt, Eva F. (2000). Simple and Complex Verbs in Jaminjung - A Study of event categorisation in an Australian language (Thesis). Radboud University. hdl:2066/147040. ISBN 90-76203-09-1.
• Jones, Judy Marchant; Bardbarriya, Dolly; Raymond, Eileen; Roberts, Doris; McDonald, Duncan; McDonald, Dinah; McDonald, Margaret; Simard, Candide; Moerkerken, Colleen; Wightman, Glenn (2011). Jaminjung, Ngaliwurru and Nungali Plants and Animals: Aboriginal knowledge of flora and fauna from the Bradshaw and Judbarra/Gregory National Park area, north Australia. Northern Territory Botanical Bulletin. Vol. 38. Palmerston, N. T.: Department of Natural Resources, Environment, the Arts and Sport. ISBN 9781921519499.