| Kuku-Thaypan | |
|---|---|
| Awu Alaya | |
| Native to | Australia |
| Region | Cape York Peninsula, Queensland |
| Ethnicity | Kuku Thaypan, Gugu Rarmul |
| Extinct | 2016 (with the death of Tommy George) |
| Language family | Pama–Nyungan |
| Dialects |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | typ |
| Glottolog | thay1248 |
| AIATSIS | Y84 Kuku Thaypan, Y71 Gugu Rarmul |
| ELP | Awu Laya |
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Kuku-Thaypan is an extinct Paman language spoken on the southwestern part of the Cape York Peninsula, Queensland in Australia, by the Kuku-Thaypan people. The language was sometimes called Alaya or Awu Alaya. Koko-Rarmul may have been a dialect, though Bowern (2012) lists Gugu-Rarmul and Kuku-Thaypan as separate languages. The last native speaker, Tommy George, died on 29 July 2016 in Cooktown Hospital.
Phonology
Vowels
Kuku-Thaypan has six vowels and two marginal vowels possibly only in loan words.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | ɨ | u |
| Mid | e | o | |
| (ɔ) | |||
| Open | (æ) | a |
- Sounds /æ/ and /ɔ/ are only marginal, as phonemes.
- /e/ is heard as [ɛ] when after palatals and /j/.
Consonants
Kuku-Thaypan has 23 consonants.
| Peripheral | Laminal | Apical | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labial | Velar | Dental | Palatal | Alveolar | Retroflex | ||
| Plosive | voiceless | p | k | t̪ | c | t | |
| prenasal | ᵐb | ᵑɡ | ⁿ̪d̪ | ᶮɟ | ⁿd | ||
| Fricative | β | ɣ | ð | ||||
| Nasal | m | ŋ | n̪ | ɲ | n | ||
| Rhotic | r | ||||||
| Lateral | l | ||||||
| Approximant | w | j | ɻ | ||||
- /r/ may be heard as a voiceless trill [r̥] when in initial position.
- /r/ may freely be heard as a tap [ɾ] or trill [r].
References
- A "legend", Indigenous Australian Leader, Knowledge Holder Tommy George Passes On.
- Y84 Kuku Thaypan at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (see the info box for additional links)
- Jean-Christophe Verstraete, Diane Hafner, Land and Language in Cape York Peninsula and the Gulf Country (ISBN 902726760X, 2016)
- RMW Dixon (2002), Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development, p xxxii
- Bowern, Claire. 2011. "How Many Languages Were Spoken in Australia?", Anggarrgoon: Australian languages on the web, December 23, 2011 (corrected February 6, 2012)
- A "legend", Indigenous Australian Leader, Knowledge Holder Tommy George Passes On.
- ^ Rigsby, Bruce (1976). "Kuku-Thaypan descriptive and historical phonology". In Sutton, P. (ed.). Languages of Cape York. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. pp. 68–77.
External links
- Bibliography of Kuku Thaypan people and language resources Archived 29 May 2015 at the Wayback Machine, at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
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