Jingulu language
Jingulu is an Australian language spoken by the Jingili in the Northern Territory of Australia, historically around the township of Elliot. Other languages spoken in the West Barkly family include Wambaya, Gudanji, Binbinka, and Ngarnka. When the Mudbarra arrived to the region the Jingili live, a cultural fusion group arose named Kuwarrangu, while the Jingilu and Mudbarra cultures still remained separate. Based on geographical proximity, the Jingili and other ethnic groups have related languages with common vocabulary.
Jingulu has an ethnologue classification of moribound: it is an endangered language with only between 10 and 15 speakers in 1997,Jingulu language#cite note-ethnologue-4| 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.
The Jingulu have a well-developed signed form of their language.
Phonology
Vowels
Jingulu has three basic vowel phoneme qualities, given in IPA in the following table. There are two high vowels, /i/ and /u/, and one low vowel /a/. /i/, /a/ and /u/ are front, central, and back, respectively. /u/ is rounded while /a/ and /i/ are unrounded.| Front | Central | Back | |
| Close | i | u | |
| Open | a |
While there are only three phonemically-distinct vowel phoneme qualities in Jingulu, the variations in vowel sounds are greater than in grammars with larger vowel phoneme inventories. These three phonemes have a variety of phonetic outputs depending on the word. The close vowel /i/ may be realized as , or ; the close vowel /u/ most commonly as , but also and ; and the open vowel /a/ as , , and .
Jingulu has contrastive vowel length. The orthographic convention of long high vowels is a two-syllable nuclei with a homorganic glide in between. In orthography, /aː/ appears as ⟨aa⟩, while the other two appear with a homorganic consonant, ⟨iyi⟩ and ⟨uwu⟩, respectively. diphthongs in Jingulu are realized as separate syllable nuclei, but not a single phoneme unit.
Vowel to long high vowel example:
Vowel to long low vowel example:
Diphthong example:
Vowel harmony
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/.Jingulu language#cite note-pensalfini 1997 97-7| However, if vowel harmony is triggered and the root contains a close vowel, none of the open vowels to the left of the close vowel will be subject to change.Consonants
Jingulu has eighteen consonant phonemes, distributed across five places of articulation and five manners of articulation.| Bilabial | Alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | |
| Stop | b | d | rd | j | k |
| Nasal | m | n | rn | ny | ng |
| Rhotic | rr | ||||
| Glide | r | y | |||
| Lateral Approximant | w | l | rl | ly | w |
Note: rr represents a flapped or trilled rhotic
Noticeably, all places of articulation have a stop phoneme. The consonant inventory is typical of Australian languages, with a lack of phonologically distinct fricatives and affricates as well as absence of phonemic consonant germinates. One noteworthy aspect of Jingulu that is unusual for Australian grammars is that it does not have series of interdentals.
There is no concrete evidence that voicing is contrastive. There is only little evidence showing that the retroflex consonants are contrastive. Most speakers of Jingulu do not make a distinction between the retroflex consonants and their alveolar equivalents. Often they merely serve as allophones. However, there are a number of minimal pairs where there indeed is a distinction, for instance dirnd- "shoot" and dind- "grind"; mininmi"Acacia victoriae" and mirnirnmi "fire drill"; and walu "forehead" and warlu "burn scar."
The glides, and , may be dropped word-initially, which is also true for . The latter may also be replaced by a glide.Jingulu language#cite note-10|
Syllable structure
According to the grammar:'C' = Consonant
'V' = Vowel
'L' = Highly sonorous consonant
The basic syllable structure in Jingulu is CV. CVC and CVLC are also permissible structures. The basic phonological unit is the open syllable when V is a long vowel, while the basic phonological unit is the closed syllable when V is a short vowel. A phonotactic restriction of Jingulu is that rr and ly cannot be word-initial. The word-final phoneme is nearly always a vowel.
Consonant clusters are evidenced in the Jingulu syllable structure. Clusters may be word-final only if they consist of a sonorant and a plosive, in that order. The largest possible clusters are triconsonantal, consisting of a liquid, nasal, and stop, strictly in this order. Furthermore, they must be placed word-internally.
| Template | Instantiation | Translation |
| CV | /jinj.ku/ | 'wood-chip' |
| CVC | /minj.kuj.ku/ | 'egg yolk' |
| CVLC | /mulk.bul.ku/ | 'small swamp' |
| CVLC/CV | /lirb.ju/ | 'egg yolk' |
| CVLC | /walk/ | 'open' |
Stress
In Jingulu, only vowels can be stress bearing units. For single morphemes, stress is predictable, landing on the penultimate SBU of a word. The final SBU is never stressed. This does not hold true for Jingulu words that come from the Pama-Nyungan languages of countries neighboring the Jingili. In general, however, Jingulu follows the following pattern:- 2 SBUs → stress on initial SBU
- 3 SBUs → generally stress on second SBU
- 4 SBUs → generally primary stress on third SBU, secondary stress on initial SBU
- 5 SBUs → primary stress on penultimate or antepenultimate SBU, secondary stress on initial SBU
- 6 SBUs → primary stress on antepenultimate SBU, secondary stress on initial SBU.
Morphology
Jingulu has both prefixes and suffixes. Morphemes can sometimes stand alone as a word, such as with pronouns and certain cases of demonstratives and adverbials, but the majority of roots must have affixes. Both derivational and inflectional affixes can be found in the grammar.Parts of speech
Jingulu vocabulary can be split into three broad categories of parts of speech: nominal, verbal, and adverbial.Nominal
Nominals are modified/affixed with case marking and morphological discourse markings.Note: Square brackets signify the case-marked argument.Verbal
The minimum words required to form an acceptable sentence in Jingulu is a light verb and either a subject or a coverbal root.Adverbial
Aside from discourse markers, adverbs do not have affixation. In some cases, adverbs must exist immediately before coverbal roots.Derivation
Jingulu has derivational affixes of the type nominalisation and adverbialisation.Nominalisation
Jingulu has three nominalising affixes: -ajka, -ajkal, and -jbunji, the latter being very rare.-ajka derives nouns from verbs, specifically a verb to the person who is undergoing the action denoted by the verb.the action of eating → that which is eaten
-ajkal derives nouns from verbs, specifically verbs to represent someone or something that performs the verb.the action of singing → that which is singing
-jbunji changes a root meaning to something that has the property associated with that root. This is a less used nominalising affix compared to the other two.the action of spearing → that which has been speared
Adverbialisation
Jingulu has two adverbialising affixes: -kaji and -nama.-kaji is similar to 'really', 'right', or 'completely', indicating that the thing it is describing is done to its greatest extent.forget → completely forget
-nama can mean 'still', 'already', 'this time', 'in the time of...', and more. It is typically used to emphasize that the root it is affixing is happening over time.went → already went
Nominals
The major uses of affixation in Jingulu are found in the expression of demonstratives, as well as the nominal features pronouns, case, number, and definiteness discussed in the next section.Demonstratives
Jingulu has three kinds of demonstratives: referential, anaphoric and cataphoric. In Jingulu, the referential demonstratives, of which there are about five sets, refer to objects that may be distal or proximal, and may be translated as "this" or "that." The anaphoric demonstratives, of which there is one set, refer to something that is already known by the speaker and listener at the time of speaking, and may be translated as "this " or "that. Finally, the cataphoric demonstrative, of which there is only one, refers to something that is not yet known by both the speaker and listener and is to be introduced, and may be translated as "this " or "that."As the demonstratives are considered nominals, most of them belong to one of the four nominal classes.Jingulu language#cite note-12|
Referential
There are five sets of referential demonstratives: jama and jimi; nyam-; ngin- and nyin-; ngunu; and ngunungku. The first three sets are all by default distal, but may be made proximal by the use of the suffix -niki. None of the last two sets may take the proximal marker, as ngunu is always considered distal, and ngunungku is generally considered proximal, normally translated as "this way."Jingulu language#cite note-13|These demonstratives vary based on gender and animacy. The demonstrative jama belongs to the masculine class, and jimi to the neuter class. However, jama may refer to nominals of all classes, and jimi may also refer to nominals of the vegetable class.Jingulu language#cite note-14| The demonstrative ngunu belongs to the neuter class, but may also refer to nominals of the vegetable class. ngunungku may refer to nominals of all classes.
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Anaphoric
Anaphoric/discourse demonstratives refer to the aforementioned. There is one set of anaphoric demonstratives: kuna and kuya. These are only used rarely, and are often replaced by referential demonstratives. The former refers to nominals of the masculine class, and the latter to nominals of the neuter class. However, the former may also refer to nominals of other classes, and the latter to nominals of the vegetable class as well.Cataphoric
The only cataphoric demonstrative is jiyi and refers to nominals of all classes.Nominal features
Gender
All nominals in Jingulu belong to a certain gender or class of which there are four: masculine, feminine, neuter and vegetable. The vegetable class is the smallest of the classes with fewest nominals. Next comes the feminine class, and then the neuter and the masculine classes.The characteristic endings of nominals belonging to the vegetable class are -imi and -ibi. Most nominals of this class are long, thin, pointed or sharp objects. For instance, a lot of vegetables, body parts, instruments and weather phenomena. Examples include wardbardbumi "bush passionfruit," mankijbi "back of neck" and kingmi "rainbow."
The characteristic endings for feminine nominals are -ini, -irni, -idi and -irdi. Most nominals of this class are female animates, different kinds of axes, the sun, as well as for most smaller songbirds, and many unusual animals. Examples include nambiliju "female body," dardawurni "axe" and lirrikbirni "cockatoo."
The characteristic ending for masculine nominals is -a, although a lot of masculine nominals also end in a consonant. Most nominals of this class are animates, although it also contains a number of flat or rounded inanimates. Examples include jambilija "male body," kiyinarra "vagina" and yarrulan "youth."
Finally, the characteristic ending for neuter nominals is -u. This class contains nominals that do not fall into any of the previous classes, and especially words for abstract concepts and entities. Examples include yurrku "nectar," ngabarangkurru "blood" and karala "ground."Jingulu language#cite note-11|
Number
Jingulu utilizes number morphology based on three numbers: singular, dual, and plural. The dual number is represented by the suffix /-bila/, and the plural number is represented by the suffix /-bala/, but they have different phonetic realizations depending on the allomorph used in context.Case
is realized in core and semantic case markings. Core case marking includes the ergative case and the dative case. Semantic/adpositional case markings include the instrumental case to mark inanimate subjects of transitive clauses. Semantic/adpositional case markings function differently from core markings; it adds more information to the word it is affixing by actually referencing a location, direction, or some other aspect.Ergative case:
Dative case:
Semantic/adpositional case:
Instrumental case:
Reduplication
In addition to affixation, reduplication is another morphophonological process of Jingulu. The reduplication pattern in Jingulu is internal reduplication, typically of the first VC syllable structure in the root, which is then infixed.mardilyi → mardardilyi
lame → lame folks
imikirni → imimikirni
old woman → old women
Syntax
Jingulu has free word order, therefore no basic word order can be established. Jingulu is syntactically classified as a Non-configurational language. The predicate of a clause will lack encyclopedic information.Jingulu language#cite note-21|The following simple Jingulu sentences are all acceptable versions of the same phrase to native speakers:
Simple sentences
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Verbless clauses
Verbless clauses lack an overt verb, normally compensating for this with two nominal elements that act as clausal predicates in its place. In syntax, verbless clauses are typically realized so that one nominal refers to the subject, while the referent of that nominal serves as the predicate, usually realized in subject-predicate order. Predicates in verbless clauses can be adjectives or nouns, possessors, adpositionals, or adverbs.Verbless clause example:
Adverb placement
Adverbs are one of the few word types that hold a strong preference for certain sentence positions with respect to the verb or to clause boundaries, depending on the type of adverb. Adverbs of time are typically sentence-initial, adverbs of place are typically at either the beginning or end of the sentence, and manner adverbs are placed before the verb most often.Adposition + noun phrase example:
Complex sentences
Word order is also free for complex sentences. Complex sentences in Jingulu can be split into two categories: coordinate and subordinate structures.Coordinate structures
Coordinate structures are found in complex sentences in which the tense of the two clauses is absolutive; i.e. the event associated with each refer to time of utterance. The two clauses may or may not occur at the same time, but they should not be reliant on one another in their occurrence.Coordinate structure example:
Subordinate structures
Subordinate structures are found in complex sentences in which the two clauses are reliant on one another, the first being the tense-determining main clause and the second being the dependent subordinate clause. The structure of these sentences can be implemented in two ways: the tense may be indicated by eliminating the core verb, or the core verb may remain but with tense features determined based on the event time of the main clause rather than the utterance time.Subordinate structures example :
Text example
Kamamurra MarlukaBundurrunu umbumami ngarnu jamirnani marlukarni, bundundurru marriya, angkula wumbumaardi kamamurra. Kamamurra jamarni marlukarni narnangajarriya biyurlarruni, kaminjirru kularrani. Kaminjirru kulayarni ngarnu ngajanarriya bundundurru marliya. Nginirni bundurru ngabangarriyi ngarni ngindirna marlukarna. Bubujirna marlukarna ngabangarriyi ngarnu bundurrunu ngunyangarriyi, ngambaya manyan kaya bundundurra.
The Old Blind Man
Be so kind as to cook that old man some food, he can't cook because he's blind. That old blind man is looking about for his children, perhaps his grandchildren or nephews. Our young people look after our feeding when we are sick. I'll take some food to that old man. I'll take this food over and give it to the old white-haired man so that he can have a sleep once he's full up.