Jingulu, also spelt Djingili, is an Australian language spoken by the Jingili people in the Northern Territory of Australia, historically around the township of Elliot. The language is an isolate branch of the Mirndi languages.
The Jingulu have (or had) a well-developed signed form of their language.
Background and location Other languages spoken in the West Barkly family include Wambaya, Gudanji, Binbinka, and Ngarnka. When the Mudburra people arrived to the region where the Jingili live, a cultural fusion group arose named Kuwarrangu, while the Jingilu and Mudburra cultures still remained separate. Based on geographical proximity, the Jingili and other ethnic groups have related languages with common vocabulary.
Jingulu was historically spoken around the township of Elliot.
Speakers and status Jingulu has an Ethnologue classification of moribund, meaning that it is an endangered language, with only between 10 and 15 speakers in 1997, the youngest being in the fifties. An additional 20 people had some command of it. However, it was not used in daily communication which instead was conducted in either English or Kriol. In 2019 approximately five people still spoke the language, including Stuart Joel Nuggett, who has recorded music in Jingulu. The remaining speakers are elderly.
Sign language
The Jingulu have (or had) a well-developed signed form of their language.Kendon, A. (1988) Sign Languages of Aboriginal Australia: Cultural, Semiotic and Communicative Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Phonology
Vowels Jingulu has three basic vowel phoneme qualities, given in IPA in the following table. There are two high vowels, /i/ and /u/, and one low vowel /a/. /i/, /a/ and /u/ are front, central, and back, respectively. /u/ is rounded while /a/ and /i/ are unrounded.
+Vowel ChartFrontCentralBackClose Open
While there are only three phonemically distinct vowel phoneme qualities in Jingulu, the variations in vowel sounds are greater than in grammars with larger vowel phoneme inventories. These three phonemes have a variety of phonetic outputs depending on the word. The close vowel /i/ may be realized as , or ; the close vowel /u/ most commonly as , but also and ; and the open vowel /a/ as , , and .
Jingulu has contrastive vowel length. The orthographic convention of long high vowels is as two apparent syllable nuclei with a homorganic glide in between. In orthography, appears as ⟨aa⟩. The other two are written (and optionally pronounced) with a homorganic consonant, ~ ⟨iyi⟩ and ~ ⟨uwu⟩, respectively. Diphthongs of non-identical vowels in Jingulu are realized as separate syllable nuclei, i.e., , , , , .
Vowel harmony An important feature of Jingulu's phonology is vowel harmony. Jingulu exhibits a regressive vowel harmony, which means that the vowels of nominal or verbal roots may be subject to change triggered by suffixes that contain a close vowel and that are directly adjacent to the root. The vowel harmony affects open vowels in the roots, which become close. Due to Jingulu's small inventory of vowels, it will always be the open vowel /a/ that is subject to change, always becoming /i/. However, if vowel harmony is triggered and the root contains a close vowel, none of the open vowels to the left of the close vowel will be subject to change.
Consonants Jingulu has eighteen consonant phonemes, distributed across five places of articulation and five manners of articulation.
+Consonant ChartBilabialAlveolarRetroflexPalatalVelarPlosive Nasal Rhotic Approximant Lateral
Note: represents a flapped or trilled rhotic
Noticeably, all places of articulation have a stop phoneme. The consonant inventory is typical of Australian languages, with a lack of phonologically distinct fricatives and affricates as well as absence of phonemic consonant germinates. One noteworthy aspect of Jingulu that is unusual for Australian grammars is that it does not have series of interdentals.
There is no concrete evidence that voicing is contrastive. There is only little evidence showing that the retroflex consonants are contrastive. Most speakers of Jingulu do not make a distinction between the retroflex consonants and their alveolar equivalents. Often they merely serve as allophones. However, there are a number of minimal pairs where there indeed is a distinction, for instance and ; and ; and and .
The glides, [w] and [j], may be dropped word-initially, which is also true for [ŋ]. The latter may also be replaced by a glide.
may be realized as or may be realized as or
may be realized as , , or may be realized as , , or
Syllable structure According to the grammar:
'C' = Consonant 'V' = Vowel 'L' = Highly sonorous consonant (i.e. liquids and glides)
The basic syllable structure in Jingulu is CV. CVC and CVLC are also permissible structures. The basic phonological unit is the open (CV) syllable when V is a long vowel, while the basic phonological unit is the closed (CVC) syllable when V is a short vowel. A phonotactic restriction of Jingulu is that rr and ly cannot be word-initial. The word-final phoneme is nearly always a vowel.
Consonant clusters are evidenced in the Jingulu syllable structure. Clusters may be word-final only if they consist of a sonorant and a [-nasal] plosive, in that order. The largest possible clusters are triconsonantal, consisting of a liquid, nasal, and stop, strictly in this order. Furthermore, they must be placed word-internally. +Syllabic TemplateTemplateInstantiationTranslationCV'wood-chip'CVC'egg yolk'CVLC'small swamp'CVLC/CV(triconsonantal cluster)'egg yolk'CVLC(word-final cluster)'open'
Stress In Jingulu, only vowels can be stress bearing units (SBUs). For single morphemes, stress is predictable, landing on the penultimate SBU of a word. The final SBU is never stressed. This does not hold true for Jingulu words that come from the Pama-Nyungan languages of countries neighboring the Jingili. In general, however, Jingulu follows the following pattern:
2 SBUs → stress on initial SBU 3 SBUs → generally stress on second SBU 4 SBUs → generally primary stress on third SBU, secondary stress on initial SBU 5 SBUs → primary stress on penultimate or antepenultimate SBU, secondary stress on initial SBU 6 SBUs → primary stress on antepenultimate SBU, secondary stress on initial SBU.
Long vowels and diphthongs have two SBUs, signifying that they do not exist as their own phoneme.
Morphology Jingulu has both prefixes and suffixes. Morphemes can sometimes stand alone as a word, such as with pronouns and certain cases of demonstratives and adverbials, but the majority of roots must have affixes. Both derivational and inflectional affixes can be found in the grammar.
Parts of speech Jingulu vocabulary can be split into three broad categories of parts of speech: nominal, verbal, and adverbial.
Nominal Nominals are modified/affixed with case marking and morphological discourse markings.
Verbal The minimum words required to form an acceptable sentence in Jingulu is a light verb and either a subject or a coverbal root.
Adverbial Aside from discourse markers, adverbs do not have affixation. In some cases, adverbs must exist immediately before coverbal roots.
Derivation Jingulu has derivational affixes of the type nominalisation and adverbialisation.
Nominalisation Jingulu has three nominalising affixes: , , and , the latter being very rare.
derives nouns from verbs, specifically a verb to the person who is undergoing the action denoted by the verb.
the action of eating → that which is eaten
derives nouns from verbs, specifically verbs to represent someone or something that performs the verb.
the action of singing → that which is singing
changes a root meaning to something that has the property associated with that root. This is a less used nominalising affix compared to the other two.
the action of spearing → that which has been speared
Adverbialisation Jingulu has two adverbialising affixes: and .
is similar to , , or , indicating that the thing it is describing is done to its greatest extent.
forget → completely forget
can mean , , , , and more. It is typically used to emphasize that the root it is affixing is happening over time.
went → already went
Nominals The major uses of affixation in Jingulu are found in the expression of demonstratives, as well as the nominal features pronouns, case, number, and (in)definiteness discussed in the next section.
Demonstratives Jingulu has three kinds of demonstratives: referential, anaphoric and cataphoric. In Jingulu, the referential demonstratives, of which there are about five sets, refer to objects that may be distal or proximal, and may be translated as "this" or "that." The anaphoric demonstratives, of which there is one set, refer to something that is already known by the speaker and listener at the time of speaking, and may be translated as "this (you know)" or "that (you know)." Finally, the cataphoric demonstrative, of which there is only one, refers to something that is not yet known by both the speaker and listener and is to be introduced, and may be translated as "this (which you are to know about)" or "that (which you are to know about)."
As the demonstratives are considered nominals, most of them belong to one of the four nominal classes.
Referential There are five sets of referential demonstratives: and ; ; and ; ; and . The first three sets are all by default distal, but may be made proximal by the use of the suffix . None of the last two sets may take the proximal marker, as is always considered distal, and is generally considered proximal, normally translated as "this way."
These demonstratives vary based on gender and animacy. The demonstrative belongs to the masculine class, and to the neuter class. However, may refer to nominals of all classes, and may also refer to nominals of the vegetable class. The demonstrative takes either the suffix , or depending on whether it refers to a nominal of the masculine, feminine, or neuter or vegetable class, respectively. Likewise, the demonstratives and take the suffix , or depending on whether it refers to a nominal of the masculine, feminine or neuter class, respectively, and become and when referring to a nominal of the vegetable class, respectively. While a demonstrative takes the proximal marker, it becomes no matter class. The demonstrative belongs to the neuter class, but may also refer to nominals of the vegetable class. may refer to nominals of all classes.
Anaphoric Anaphoric/discourse demonstratives refer to the aforementioned. There is one set of anaphoric demonstratives: kuna and kuya. These are only used rarely, and are often replaced by referential demonstratives. The former refers to nominals of the masculine class, and the latter to nominals of the neuter class. However, the former may also refer to nominals of other classes, and the latter to nominals of the vegetable class as well.
Cataphoric The only cataphoric demonstrative is jiyi and refers to nominals of all classes.
Nominal features
Gender All nominals in Jingulu belong to a certain gender or class of which there are four: masculine, feminine, neuter and vegetable. The vegetable class is the smallest of the classes with fewest nominals. Next comes the feminine class, and then the neuter and the masculine classes.
The characteristic endings of nominals belonging to the vegetable class are -imi and -ibi. Most nominals of this class are long, thin, pointed or sharp objects. For instance, a lot of vegetables, body parts, instruments and weather phenomena. Examples include wardbardbumi "bush passionfruit," mankijbi "back of neck" and kingmi "rainbow."