| Guugu Yimithirr | |
| Pronunciation: | pronounced as /ˈkuːku ˈjɪmɪt̪ɪr/ |
| Region: | Hopevale, Queensland |
| Ethnicity: | Guugu Yimithirr, Koko Njekodi |
| Date: | 2021 census |
| Ref: | [1] |
| Familycolor: | Australian |
| Fam1: | Pama–Nyungan |
| Fam2: | Paman? |
| Fam3: | Yalanjic or Yimidhirr–Yalanji–Yidinic |
| Script: | Latin |
| Iso3: | kky |
| Glotto: | gugu1255 |
| Glottorefname: | Guugu Yimidhirr |
| Dia1: | Dhalundhirr |
| Dia2: | Waguurrga |
| Dia3: | Nyiguudyi |
| Notice: | IPA |
| Aiatsis: | Y82 |
Guugu Yimithirr, also rendered Guugu Yimidhirr, Guguyimidjir, and many other spellings, is an Australian Aboriginal language, the traditional language of the Guugu Yimithirr people of Far North Queensland. It belongs to the Pama-Nyungan language family.[2] Most of the speakers today live at the community of Hope Vale, about from Cooktown. However, only about half of the Guugu Yimithirr nation speak the language. As such, efforts are being made to teach it to children. Guugu Yimithirr is the source language of the word kangaroo .[3]
The word means 'speech, language', while (or) means -having, being the word for 'this'. The use of the word, rather than some other word for "this", was seen as a distinctive feature of Guugu Yimithirr. The element and the practice of naming based on some distinctive word is found in many other languages.
The name has many spelling variants, including Gogo-Yimidjir, Gugu-Yimidhirr, Gugu Yimithirr, Guugu Yimidhirr, Guguyimidjir (used by Ethnologue), Gugu Yimijir, Kukuyimidir, Koko Imudji, Koko Yimidir, Kuku Jimidir, Kuku Yimithirr, and Kuku Yimidhirr.
| Location of the Guugu Yimithirr people |
As of the early 21st century, however, most Guugu Yimithirr speakers live at the mission at Hopevale.
Guugu Yimithirr originally consisted of several dialects, although even the names of most have now been forgotten. Today, two main dialects are distinguished: the coastal dialect, called 'with the sea', and the inland dialect, called 'of the outside'.[4] [5] Missionaries used the coastal dialect to translate hymns and Bible stories, so some of its words now have religious associations that the inland equivalents lack. There was once also a Ngegudi or Gugu Nyiguudyi dialect.[6]
In 1770, Guugu Yimithirr became the first Australian Aboriginal language to be written down when Lieutenant (later Captain) James Cook and his crew recorded words while their ship, the HM Bark Endeavour, was being repaired after having run aground on a shoal of the Great Barrier Reef. Joseph Banks described the language as "totally different from that of the Islanders; it sounded more like English in its degree of harshness though it could not be [sic] harsh neither".
Among the words recorded were or (IPA: pronounced as //ɡaŋuru//), meaning a large black or grey kangaroo, which would become the general English term for all kangaroos, and (transcribed by Banks as Je-Quoll), the name of the quoll.
Sydney Parkinson, who accompanied Cook, gave a useful word list in his posthumously published journal, A Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas.[7]
| Front | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| High | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |
| Low | pronounced as /ink/ | ||
| Peripheral | Laminal | Apical | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bilabial | Velar | Palatal | Dental | Alveolar | Retroflex | ||
| Stop | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |
| Nasal | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |
| Lateral | pronounced as /ink/ | ||||||
| Rhotic | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |||||
| Semivowel | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |||||
The retroflexes pronounced as /[ɖ ɳ]/ may not be single phonemes, but clusters of pronounced as //ɻd ɻn//. However, there is at least one word which, for older speakers, is pronounced with a word-initial retroflex: run, which is pronounced as /[ɖudaː]/ or pronounced as /[ɖuɖaː]/.
The rhotic pronounced as //r// is normally a flap pronounced as /link/, but may be a trill in emphatic speech.
All words, with the exception of a couple of interjections, begin with one consonant. The consonant can be a stop, nasal, or semivowel (that is, pronounced as //l r ɻ// do not occur initially).
Words can end in either a vowel or a consonant. The allowed word-final consonants are pronounced as //l r ɻ j n n̪//.
Within words, any consonant can occur, as well as clusters of up to three consonants, which cannot occur initially or finally.
Like many Australian languages, Guugu Yimithirr pronouns have accusative morphology while nouns have ergative morphology. That is, the subject of an intransitive verb has the same form as the subject of a transitive verb if the subject is a pronoun, but the same form as the object of a transitive verb otherwise.
Regardless of whether nouns or pronouns are used, the usual sentence order is subject–object–verb, although other word orders are possible.
The language is notable for its use of pure geographic directions (north, south, east, west) rather than egocentric directions (left, right, forward, backward),[8] though such "purity" is disputed.[9] Still, it has given its speakers a remarkable sense of direction.
, only about half of the 1,400 Guugu Yimithirr people speak the language, with mostly only grandparents being fluent speakers. Hope Vale elders are helping to create video tutorials on teaching Guugu Yimithirr, which are being uploaded to YouTube, while the local school, Hope Vale Cape York Aboriginal Australian Academy, has a language program in its curriculum. With the schools closed and learning being done in the home, using the online videos, during the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia, adults as well as younger siblings have been learning the language alongside the schoolchildren.[3]
Some words from the Guugu Yimithirr language, as spelt and written by Guugu Yimithirr authors include: