Gooniyandi language

Gooniyandi language

Infobox Language
name=Gooniyandi
region=Western Australia
speakers=100
familycolor=Australian
fam1=Bunuban
script=Latin alphabet
iso2=aus
iso3=gni

Gooniyandi is an Australian Aboriginal language now spoken by about 100 people, most of whom live in or near Fitzroy Crossing in Western Australia. Gooniyandi is an endangered language as it is not being passed on to children, who instead grow up speaking Kriol.

Classification

Gooniyandi is closely related to Bunuba, to about the same degree as English is related to Dutch. The two are the only members of the Bunuban language family. Unlike the majority of Australian Aboriginal languages, Gooniyandi and Bunuba are non-Pama-Nyungan.

Writing system

A system of spelling Gooniyandi in the Latin alphabet was adopted by the community in 1984, and subsequently revised in 1990 and again in 1999. It is not phonemic, as it omits some distinctions made in speech.

Grammar

Gooniyandi has no genders, but a large number of cases; it uses an ergative-absolutive case system. It is a verb-final language, but without a dominant order between the subject and the object.

References

*cite book |last=McGregor |first=William |year=1990 |title=A Functional Grammar of Gooniyandi |location=Amsterdam |publisher=John Benjamins
*cite book |last=McGregor |first=William |year=1994 |chapter=Gooniyandi |editor=Nick Thieberger & William McGregor |title=Macquarie Aboriginal Words |publisher=The Macquarie Library |pages=193–213
*cite book |last=McGregor |first=William |year=2004 |title=The Languages of the Kimberley, Western Australia |location=London, New York |publisher=Taylor & Francis
*cite book|author=M Haspelmath, M S Dryer, D Gil, B Comrie|title=The World Atlas of Language Structures|year=2005|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford

External links

* [http://www.rosettaproject.org/archive/gni Gooniyandi at the Rosetta project]
* [http://www.omniglot.com/writing/gooniyandi.php Gooniyandi on the Omniglot website]


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  • Gooniyandi — /ˈgʊnijʌndi/ (say gooneeyundee) noun 1. an Australian Aboriginal people of the Fitzroy Crossing area in the Kimberley region of WA. 2. the language of this people. –adjective 3. of or relating to this people or their language. Also, Kunian …  

  • Gooniyandi — noun An Aboriginal language of Western Australia …   Wiktionary

  • Gooniyandi — ISO 639 3 Code : gni ISO 639 2/B Code : ISO 639 2/T Code : ISO 639 1 Code : Scope : Individual Language Type : Living …   Names of Languages ISO 639-3

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  • Bunuban languages — Infobox Language family name = Bunuban region = northern Australia family = a primary family of Australian languages. familycolor = Australian child1 = Bunuba child2 = Gooniyandi The Bunuban languages are a small family of Australian Aboriginal… …   Wikipedia

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  • Australian Aboriginal languages — Group of perhaps 250 languages spoken by the one to two million native inhabitants of Australia before the beginning of European conquest in 1788. More than half are now extinct; of the remainder, only about 20, mostly in the North Territory and… …   Universalium

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  • gni — ISO 639 3 Code of Language ISO 639 2/B Code : ISO 639 2/T Code : ISO 639 1 Code : Scope : Individual Language Type : Living Language Name : Gooniyandi …   Names of Languages ISO 639-3

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