Barrow Point language explained

Barrow Point language should not be confused with Point Barrow.

Barrow Point
Also Known As:	Mutumui
Nativename:	Eibole
Region:	Queensland, Australia
Ethnicity:	Mutumui
Extinct:	by 2005, with the death of Urwunjin Roger Hart
Ref:	aiatsis
Familycolor:	Australian
Fam1:	Pama–Nyungan
Fam2:	Paman^[1]
Fam3:	North Cape York
Fam4:	Wik
Fam5:	Yalanjic?
Iso3:	bpt
Glotto:	barr1247
Glottorefname:	Barrow Point
Aiatsis:	Y63.1
Notice:	IPA

The Barrow Point or Mutumui language, called Eibole, is a recently extinct Australian Aboriginal language. According to Wurm and Hattori (1981), there was one speaker left at the time.

Classification

The language has one dialect in the north called Ongwara.^[2]

Phonology

Unusually among Australian languages, Barrow Point had at least two fricative phonemes, pronounced as //ð// and pronounced as //ɣ//. They usually developed from pronounced as /

• t̪

/ and pronounced as /

• k

/, respectively, when preceded by a stressed long vowel, which then shortened.^[3]

References

• Book: Dixon, R. M. W. . R. M. W. Dixon . Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development . Cambridge University Press . 2002. 0521473780 .

Further reading

• John Haviland and Roger Hart's Old Man Fog and the Last Aborigines of Barrow Point,, a novel about the efforts of Hart, a native of the Cape York peninsula, to record and preserve Barrow Point language and culture.

Notes and References

1. Bowern, Claire. 2011. "How Many Languages Were Spoken in Australia?", Anggarrgoon: Australian languages on the web, December 23, 2011 (corrected February 6, 2012)
2. Web site: Mutumui (QLD) . 2023-11-21 . www.samuseum.sa.gov.au.
3. Book: Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development. Dixon. R. M. W.. Dixon. Robert M. W.. Dixon. Adjunct Professor and Deputy Director of the Language and Culture Centre R. M. W.. 2002-11-14. Cambridge University Press. 9780521473781. en.