Alawa language

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Alawa
Native to Australia
Region Northern Territory; Arnhem Land, Roper River.
Ethnicity Alawa
Native speakers
12 (2006 census)[1]
Arnhem?
Language codes
ISO 639-3 alh
Glottolog alaw1244[2]
AIATSIS[1] N92
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

Alawa (Galawa) is a moribund Indigenous Australian language spoken by the Alawa people of the Northern Territory. In 1991, it had 18 remaining speakers and 4 semi-speakers.[3]

Phonology

Consonants

Alawa has a typical consonant inventory for an Indigenous Australian language, with five contrastive places of articulation, multiple lateral consonants, and no voicing contrast among the stops.[4]

Alveolar Palatal Peripheral
Alveolar Retroflex Alveo-palatal Velar Bilabial
Prenasalised Stop ⁿd ⁿɖ ⁿɟ ⁿɡ ⁿb
Devoiced Stop t ʈ c k p
Nasals n ɳ ɲ ŋ m
Laterals l ɭ l
Vibrants r
Glide ɹ j w

Note: there are no standardised IPA symbols for alveopalatal stops.

Vowels

The vowel system of Alawa is made up of four vowel phonemes: the high front vowel /i/, the high back vowel /u/, the mid front vowel /e/, and the low central vowel /a/.[5]

Front Central Back
High i u
Mid e
Low a

There are no rounding contrasts or length contrasts in this language.[6]

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 Alawa at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
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  4. Sharpe, Margaret C. 1972
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  6. Sharpe, Margaret C. 1972

External links


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