Marringarr language
The Maringarr language is a moribund Australian Aboriginal language spoken along the northwest coast of the Northern Territory.
Marti Ke lies in the same language category. It is or was spoken by the Mati Ke people. it is included in a language revival project which aims to preserve critically endangered languages.
Geographic distribution
The language has been spoken in the Northern Territory, Wadeye, along Timor Sea, coast south from Moyle River estuary to Port Keats, southwest of Darwin.Current status
According to the Language Database, as of 2005 Mati Ke language had a population of three. Mati Ke speakers have primarily switched to use of English and the flourishing Aboriginal language Murrinh-Patha. The ethnic population is about 100, and there are 50 second language users.As the language is almost non-existent to date, linguists have been working on collecting information and recording the voices of the remaining speakers.
Language revival project
, Mati Ke is one of 20 languages prioritised as part of the Priority Languages Support Project, being undertaken by First Languages Australia and funded by the Department of Communications and the Arts. The project aims to "identify and document critically-endangered languages—those languages for which little or no documentation exists, where no recordings have previously been made, but where there are living speakers".Phonology
Consonants
- /p/ may also be heard as a bilabial fricative in intervocalic positions.
- /c/ may also be heard as a fricative in intervocalic positions.
- /r/ may also be heard as a tap , and can be realized as within the position of voiceless sounds.
- Sounds /t, d, l/ may often be realized as retroflex sounds when following a non-front vowel.
- /t̪/ may also be heard as a fricative in intervocalic positions.
- /β/ may also be heard as a voiceless , in various word-initial positions.
Vowels
- Sounds /i, u/ have lax allophones of in word-medial and unstressed positions. They are mainly heard as in stressed positions, in word-final positions or following glide sounds.
- /u/ can be realized as when preceded or followed by a peripheral consonant. When preceding a palatal consonant, it is realized as a diphthong .
- /ɐ/ is often heard as when following a palatal consonant. When preceding a palatal consonant, it is realized as a diphthong .
Grammar
Marringarr also contains ergativity, which is marked by the postposition -ŋarrin.
Nouns' classification constitutes a core of the language that forms an understanding of the world for its speakers. There are 10 noun classes including: trees, wooden items and long rigid objects; manufactured and natural objects; vegetables; weapons and lightning; places and times; animals; higher beings such as spirits and people, and speech and languages.
| Noun class | Classifier |
| trees, wooden items and long rigid objects | thawurr |
| higher beings | me |
| animals | a |
| manufactured and natural objects | nhannjdji |
| vegetables | mi |