Nukunu (or Nugunu or many other names: see below) is a moribund Australian Aboriginal language spoken by Nukunu people on Yorke Peninsula, South Australia. As of 2017, there is a revival and maintenance programme under way for the language.^[2]

Names

This language has been known by many names by neighbouring tribes and Australianists, including:

• Nukuna, Nokunna, Noocoona, Nookoona, Nuguna, Nukana, Nukunnu, Nukunu, Njuguna
• Doora
• Pukunna
• Tjura, Tyura
• Wallaroo, Warra
• Wongaidya (from wangkatya, present tense form of verb 'to speak')

Classification

Nukunu is a Pama–Nyungan language, closely related to neighboring languages in the Miru cluster^[3] like Narungga, Kaurna, and Ngadjuri.

Phonology

Vowels

Nukunu has three different vowels with contrastive long and short lengths (a, i, u, a:, i:, u:).

Consonants

The Nukunu consonantal inventory is typical for a Pama–Nyungan language, with six places of articulation for stops and nasals. There are three rhotics in the language.

A phonemic voicing contrast exists in Nukunu, but it has only been observed in the retroflex stop series. An example demonstrating such a contrast intervocalically is kurdi (phlegm, IPA ['kuɖi]) and kurti (quandong, IPA ['kuʈi]).

History

In contrast with other Thura–Yura languages, Nukunu did not partake in either the initial th- lenition before vowels or the lenition of initial k- before vowels.