Yawuru language
Yawuru is a Western Nyulnyulan language spoken on the coast south of Broome in Western Australia.
Grammatically it resembles other Nyulnyulan languages. It has a relatively free word order.
By the late 1990s the number of fluent speakers of Yawuru had dropped to a handful but a few younger people dedicated themselves to learning the language and they are now teaching it in schools and in adult classes, in Broome.
Phonology
The vowel phonemes are short vowels /ɪ/, /a/, and /u/, and long vowels /iː/, /aː/, and /ʊː/.Consonantal segments include:
Speakers also use glottal stops, implosives, and ejectives.
Syllable structure in the initial position is #CV, in the medial position is CV, and in the final position is CV#. # representing the word boundary, C standing for consonant, V for vowel, and V: for long vowel. The most common syllables are CV or CVC .
Orthography
Vowels
- a -
- i -
- u -
- aa -
- ii -
- uu -
Consonants
- b -
- d -
- dy -
- g -
- j -
- k -
- l -
- ly -
- m -
- n -
- ny -
- ng -
- p -
- r -
- rd -
- rl -
- rn -
- rr -
- rry -
- rt -
- t -
- ty -
- w -
- y -
- ' -
Grammar
Morphology
Nominals inflect for case and adverbs, belonging to this class, take case markers. Case markers are signified by enclitics. Nominals do not have a declension class. Verbs inflect to denote person, number, tense, mood, and aspect. Prefixes, suffixes, and enclitics are used to conjugate verbs.There are four person categories in Yawuru: first person, second person, third person, and fourth person, which is made up by a first person inclusive.