Umbugarla
Mbukarla
RegionNorthern Territory
Extinctca. 2000; with the death of Butcher Knight
Darwin
  • Umbugarlic
    • Umbugarla
Language codes
ISO 639-3umr
Glottologumbu1235
AIATSIS[1]N43
ELPUmbugarla
  historic distribution of Umbugarla

Umbugarla or Mbukarla is a possible Australian language isolate once spoken by three people in Arnhem Land, northern Australia, in 1981, and is now extinct.

Phonology

Consonants

Peripheral Laminal Apical
Labial Velar Palatal Alveolar Retroflex
Plosive b ɡ ɟ d ɖ
Nasal m ŋ ɲ n ɳ
Lateral ʎ l ɭ
Rhotic ɽ
Approximant w j ɹ

Vowels

Front Back
High i iː u uː
Mid ɛ ɔ
Low a aː
Phoneme Allophones
/a/ [ä], [äː], [æ], [ɛ], [ə], [ɒ], [o]
/ɛ/ [ɛ], [ɛː]
/i/ [i], [iː], [ɨ], [ʉ], [ə], [eː]
/u/ [u], [uː], [o], [oː], [ʉ], [ə]
/uː/ [uː], [oː]

Classification

Umbugarla was once considered a language isolate (together with Ngurmbur as a dialect), but Mark Harvey has made a case for it being part of a family of Darwin Region languages.[3]

References

  1. ^ N43 Umbugarla at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
  2. ^ Davies, Jennifer (1989). Umbugarla: A Sketch Grammar. University of Melbourne.
  3. ^ Bowern, Claire. 2011. "How Many Languages Were Spoken in Australia?", Anggarrgoon: Australian languages on the web, December 23, 2011 (corrected February 6, 2012)

External links

Wiktionary has a word list at Appendix:Umbugarla word list


Australian Aboriginal and Tasmanian languages
Categories