Kayardild language explained
| Kayardild |
| Region: | South Wellesley Islands, north west Queensland, Australia |
| Ethnicity: | Kaiadilt, Yanggal |
| Speakers: | 8 |
| Date: | 2016 census |
| Familycolor: | Australian |
| Fam1: | Macro-Pama–Nyungan? |
| Fam2: | Tangkic |
| Dia1: | Kayardild |
| Dia2: | Yangkaal[1] |
| Lc1: | gyd |
| Ld1: | Kayardild |
| Lc2: | nny |
| Ld2: | Yangkaal/Nyangga (two different languages) |
| Glotto: | kaya1318 |
| Glottorefname: | Kayardild–Yangkaal |
| Aiatsis: | G35 |
| Aiatsisname: | Kayardild |
| Aiatsis2: | G37 |
| Aiatsisname2: | Yangkaal |
| Elp2: | 4887 |
| Elpname2: | Yangkaal |
| Map: | File:Wellesley Islands locator map.jpg |
| Mapcaption: | Kayardild Traditional area |
| Map2: | Lang Status 20-CR.svg |
Kayardild is a moribund Tangkic language spoken by the Kaiadilt on the South Wellesley Islands, north west Queensland, Australia. Other members of the family include Yangkaal (spoken by the Yangkaal people), Lardil, and Yukulta (Ganggalidda).
Kayardild is a critically endangered language, considered near-extinct.[2] In 1981, there were around fifty native speakers of Kayardild. The number of speakers of Kayardild significantly reduced since the 1940s as a result of the stolen generations.[3] By 1981, there were fifty known native speakers. In the 2016 census, there were eight.[4]
Kayardild is known for its many unusual case phenomena, including case stacking of up to four levels, the use of clause-level case to signal interclausal relations and pragmatic factors, and another set of 'verbal case' endings which convert their hosts from nouns into verbs morphologically. It is also well-known for only allowing subordination one level deep. Kayardild is the only known spoken language where tense markers appear on both nouns and verbs.[5]
Speakers tend to have a preference for subject–object–verb word order.[6]
Phonology
Kayardild vowel phonemes!! Front! Back| Close | pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/ |
|---|
| Open | pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/ | |
|---|
Bibliography
- Book: Evans, Nick . The Handbook of Phonological Theory . Blackwell . 1995a . Goldsmith . John A. . Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics . 723–761 . Current Issues in Australian languages . 1st.
- Book: Evans, Nicholas . A Grammar of Kayardild: With Historical-comparative Notes on Tangkic . 1995b . Walter de Gruyter . 978-3-11-012795-9 . Berlin . en.
Further reading
- Book: Evans, Nicholas . 1988 . Odd topic marking in Kayardild . Peter . Austin . Complex sentence constructions in Australian Languages . Typological Studies in Language . 15 . Amsterdam . John Benjamins . 219–266 . 10.1075/tsl.15.11eva. 978-90-272-2887-1 .
- Book: Evans, Nicholas . 1992 . Kayardild Dictionary and Thesaurus . University of Melbourne: Department of Linguistics and Language Studies.
- Book: Evans, Nicholas . 1995c . The Kayardild language . Julia . Robinson . Voices of Queensland . Melbourne . Oxford University Press.
- Book: Evans, Nicholas . 1995d . Multiple case in Kayardild: anti-iconicity and the diachronic filter . F. . Plank . Double case. Agreement by Suffixaufnahme . Oxford University Press . 396–428 . 9780195087758 . https://archive.org/details/trent_0116404289971/page/396/mode/2up.
- Evans . Nicholas . 2001 . Typologies of agreement: some problems from Kayardild . Transactions of the Philological Society . 101 . 2 . 203–234. 10.1111/1467-968X.00118 . 1885/33294 . free .
- Encyclopedia: Evans . Nicholas . 2006 . Kayardild . Keith . Brown . Encyclopaedia of Language and Linguistics . 6 . Oxford . Elsevier . 168–169.
- Round . Erich . 2009 . Kayardild Morphology, Phonology, and Morphosyntax . PhD . Yale University.
- Book: Round, Erich . 2013 . Kayardild Morphology and Syntax . Oxford . Oxford University Press . 978-0-19-965487-1.
- Round . Erich . Corbett . Greville G. . 2016 . The theory of feature systems: one feature versus two for Kayardild tense-aspect-mood . Morphology . 27 . 1 . 1–55 . 10.1007/s11525-016-9294-3 . free.
Notes and References
- Book: Dixon, R. M. W. . R. M. W. Dixon . Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development . Cambridge University Press . 2002 . 0521473780. xxxix.
- Web site: Kayardild . 2024-05-16 . Glottolog 5.0.
- Wuethrich . Bernice . 2000 . Learning the World's Languages: Before They Vanish . Science . 288 . 5469 . 1156–1159 . 0036-8075.
- Web site: Census 2016, Language spoken at home by Sex (SA2+). stat.data.abs.gov.au. en-au. Australian Bureau of Statistics. 2017-10-29. 26 December 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20181226044803/http://stat.data.abs.gov.au/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=ABS_C16_T09_SA. dead.
- Dorian . Nancy C. . Commentary: Broadening the Rhetorical and Descriptive Horizons in Endangered-Language Linguistics . Journal of Linguistic Anthropology . 12 . 2 . 2002 . 134–140 . 10.1525/jlin.2002.12.2.134 . 43104008.
- Book: Evans, Nicholas . A Grammar of Kayardild: With Historical-comparative Notes on Tangkic . Walter de Gruyter . 1995 . 978-3-11-012795-9 . Berlin.
