Dhuwal language


Dhuwal is one of the Yolŋu languages spoken by Aboriginal Australians in the Northern Territory, Australia. Although all Yolŋu languages are mutually intelligible to some extent, Dhuwal represents a distinct dialect continuum of eight separate varieties.

Dialects

According to linguist Robert M. W. Dixon,
  • Dialects of the Yirritja moiety are Gupapuyngu and Gumatj;
  • Dialects of the Dhuwa moiety are Djambarrpuyngu, Djapu, Liyagalawumirr, and Guyamirlili.
  • In addition, it would appear that the Dhay'yi dialects, Dhalwangu and Djarrwark, are part of the same language.
Ethnologue divides Dhuwal into four languages, plus Dayi and the contact variety Dhuwaya :
  • Dhuwal proper, Datiwuy, Dhuwaya, Liyagawumirr, Marrangu, and Djapu: 600 speakers
  • Djampbarrpuyŋu, 2,760 speakers
  • Gumatj, 240 speakers
  • Gupapuyngu, 330 speakers
  • Dhay'yi and Dhalwangu, 170 speakers
Dhuwaya is a stigmatised contact variant used by the younger generation in informal contexts, and is the form taught in schools, having replaced Gumatj ca. 1990.

Modern usage

According to historian Clare Wright, the Yirrkala bark petitions, which were presented to the Australian Parliament in August 1963, were written in a standardised Yolngu script developed by the Yirrkala missionary Beulah Lowe, based on Yolngu languages. According to an article published by the Robert Menzies Institute, this language was based on Gupapuyngu.
In 2019, Djambarrpuyŋu became the first Indigenous language to be spoken in an Australian Parliament, when Yolŋu man and member of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly Yingiya Guyula gave a speech in his native tongue.

Phonology

Consonants

Vowels

Vowel length is contrastive in first syllable only.

Orthography

Probably every Australian language with speakers remaining has had an orthography developed for it, in each case in the Latin script. Sounds not found in English are usually represented by digraphs, or more rarely by diacritics, such as underlines, or extra symbols, sometimes borrowed from the International Phonetic Alphabet. Some examples are shown in the following table.
LanguageExampleTranslationType
Pitjantjatjara dialect of the Western Desert languagepaṉa'earth, dirt, ground; land'diacritic indicates the retroflex nasal
Wajarrinha'nha'this, this one'digraph indicating the dental nasal
Yolŋu languagesyolŋ'u'person, man' represents the velar nasal