| Language name: | YOLNGU |
| UPSID number: | 8375 |
| Alternate name(s): | DHANGU |
| Classification: | Australian, Pama-Nyungan |
| This language has | 23 segments |
| Its Frequency index is | 0.341463415 (average percentage of segments; 0.1: many very rare segments; 0.39: average; 0.7: many common segments) |
| The language has these sounds: | p tD t t_ t. k ? m nD n n_ n. N r.[ r l l. r.A j w I 4 U |
| Comment: | Djapu dialect. Yolngu is spoken in north-east Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia. Stops have both voiced and voiceless allophones but intervocalically they are voiceless in the tape recording prepared by Rose and Morphy, hence are interpreted as voiceless. Glottal stops in final position are partially predictable but contrasts occur. Alveolar consonants rarely occur word-initially (and then mostly in loanwords); dental consonants do not occur word-finally. Vowels in word-initial syllables have contrastive length; single following consonants after contrastively short vowels tend to be long. |
| Source(s): | Morphy, F. 1983. Djapu, a Yolngu dialect. In R.M.W. Dixon and B.J. Blake (eds.), Handbook of Australian Languages, Vol. 3. John Benjamins, Amsterdam. Rose, P., Morphy, F. 1982. Yolngu Sounds (tape and listening exercise). Australian National University, Canberra. |