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.
| Umbugarla | |
|---|---|
| Mbukarla | |
| Region | Northern Territory |
| Extinct | ca. 2000; with the death of Butcher Knight |
Darwin
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | umr |
| Glottolog | umbu1235 |
| AIATSIS[1] | N43 |
| ELP | Umbugarla |
 historic distribution of Umbugarla | |
Phonology edit
Consonants edit
| 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 | ||
- /ɡ/ can be heard as either stops [k] or [ʔ] when in word-final or word-medial position, and as a fricative [ɣ] when in intervocalic position.
- /ɽ/ can also be heard as an alveolar tap [ɾ] when in intervocalic position.
Vowels edit
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| High | i iː | u uː |
| Mid | ɛ | ɔ |
| Low | a aː | |
- Vowels can be lengthened when in open syllables or in word-final position.[2]
| 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 edit
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 edit
- ^ N43 Umbugarla at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
- ^ Davies, Jennifer (1989). Umbugarla: A Sketch Grammar. University of Melbourne.
- ^ 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 edit
Wiktionary has a word list at Appendix:Umbugarla word list
- Umbugarla Swadesh list at the Internet Archive
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