Kungkari language

Not to be confused with Gunggari language.

Kungkari
Kuungkari of Barcoo River
Native toAustralia
Extinct(date missing)
Pama–Nyungan
  • (unclassified,
    possibly Karnic)
    • Kungkari
Language codes
ISO 639-3lku
Glottologkuun1236
AIATSIS[1]L38
ELPKungkari

Kungkari (also Gunggari, Koonkerri, Kuungkari) is an extinct and unclassified Australian Aboriginal language.[1] The Kungkari language region included the landscape within the local government boundaries of the Longreach Shire Council and Blackall-Tambo Shire Council.[2]

Classification

Geographically it lay near the Barcoo River between the Karnic and Maric languages, but had no obvious connection to either; the data is too poor to draw any conclusions on classification.

Bowern (2001) mentions Kungkari as a possible Karnic language.[3]: 247 

Wafer and Lissarrague (2008)[4]: 324  report that a description of Kungkari by Breen (1990)[5]: 22–64  is of Kungkari, not the similarly-named Gunggari, which was Maric.[3]

Phonology

Consonants

Peripheral Laminal Apical
Labial Velar Dental Palatal Alveolar Retroflex
Plosive p k t̪ c t ʈ
Nasal m ŋ n̪ ɲ n ɳ
Rhotic r
Lateral (l̪) ʎ l ɭ
Approximant w j ɻ
  • The dental lateral [l̪] mainly occurs as an allophone of /l/ within the consonant cluster /lt̪/.
  • /t/ may be realized as a voiced stop [d] when after /n/, or as a voiced tap [ɾ] in intervocalic positions.

Vowels

Front Central Back
High i iː u (uː)
Low a aː
  • The long [uː] only rarely occurs.[5]

References

  1. ^ a b L38 Kungkari at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
  2. ^ This Wikipedia article incorporates text from Kuungkari published by the State Library of Queensland under CC BY licence, accessed on 25 May 2022.
  3. ^ a b Bowern, Claire (2001). "Karnic classification revisited". In J Simpson; et al. (eds.). Forty years on. Canberra Pacific Linguistics. pp. 245–260. Archived from the original on 3 November 2021.
  4. ^ Wafer, Jim; Lissarrague, Amanda (2008). A Handbook of Aboriginal Languages of New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory. Muurrbay Aboriginal Language & Culture Co-operative.
  5. ^ a b Breen, Gavan (1990). Salvage studies of Western Queensland Aboriginal languages (PDF). Pacific Linguistics B-105. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.


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