Marringarr language

Not to be confused with Magati language.

Marri Ngarr
Native to	Australia
Region	Daly River
Ethnicity	Marringarr
Native speakers	5 (2016 census) [1]
Language family	Western Daly Marri Ngarr
Dialects	Marri Ngarr Marti Ke (Magati-ge)
Language codes
ISO 639-3	zmt
Glottolog	mari1418
AIATSIS [1]	N102
ELP	Marringarr

The Maringarr language (Marri Ngarr, Marenggar, Maringa) is a moribund Australian Aboriginal language spoken along the northwest coast of the Northern Territory.

Phonology

Consonants

		Bilabial	Apical		Laminal		Dorsal
			Alveolar	Retroflex	Dental	Palatal
Stop	voiceless	p	t		t̪	c	k
	voiced	b	d
Fricative		β		ʐ		ʝ	ɣ
Nasal		m	n			ɲ	ŋ
Lateral			l
Rhotic			r
Approximant		w		ɻ		j

• /p/ may also be heard as a bilabial fricative [ɸ] in intervocalic positions.
• /c/ may also be heard as a fricative [ʒ] in intervocalic positions.
• /r/ may also be heard as a tap [ɾ], and can be realized as [r̥] within the position of voiceless consonants. ^[2]
• /t, d, l/ may often be realized as retroflex [ʈ, ɖ, ɭ] when following a non-front vowel.
• /t̪/ may also be heard as a fricative [ð] in intervocalic positions.
• /β/ may also be heard as a voiceless [ɸ], in various word-initial positions. ^[3]

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
Mid	ɛ
Low	ɐ ~ æ

• Sounds /i, u/ have lax allophones of [ɪ, ʊ] in word-medial and unstressed positions. They are mainly heard as [i, u] in stressed positions, in word-final positions or following glide sounds.
• /u/ can be realized as [ɔ] when preceded or followed by a peripheral consonant. When preceding a palatal consonant, it is realized as a diphthong [ɔɪ].
• /ɐ/ is often heard as [æ] when following a palatal consonant. When preceding a palatal consonant, it is realized as a diphthong [aɪ]. ^[3]

Grammar

The vocabulary is limited, therefore the relations and positioning of the words matter to make sense of the construction according to the situation. It is a polysynthetic language. ^[4]

ex:

niwinj

3DU

yi

that

gudingi-derrkurr-fingi-gawunh

3DU.SBJ.DI.R.IPFV-sharpen-now-3DU.SBJ.SIT.R

niwinj yi gudingi-derrkurr-fingi-gawunh

3DU that 3DU.SBJ.DI.R.IPFV-sharpen-now-3DU.SBJ.SIT.R

'Those two fellas are sharpening their knives now.'

Marringarr also contains ergativity, which is marked by the postposition -ŋarrin. ^[5]

Nouns' classification constitutes a core of the language that forms an understanding of the world for its speakers. There are 10 noun classes including: trees, wooden items and long rigid objects; manufactured and natural objects; vegetables; weapons and lightning; places and times; animals; higher beings such as spirits and people, and speech and languages. ^[6]

Noun class	Classifier
trees, wooden items and long rigid objects	thawurr
higher beings	me
animals	a
manufactured and natural objects	nhannjdji
vegetables	mi

Selected vocabulary

Maringarr	English
mi bakulin	billygoat plum
nhanjdiji marri	cycad
a marri	bush cockroach
a wayelh	goanna lizard
a dhan gi	saltwater prawn

References

1. N102 Marri Ngarr at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
2. Tryon, Darrell T. (1974). Marengar. In Tryon, Darrell T, Daly Family Languages, Australia. (Pacific Linguistics: Series C, 32.): Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University. pp. 120–137.
3. Bicevskis, Katie (2023). A grammatical description of Marri Ngarr. University of Melbourne.
4. Fortescue, Michael; Fortescue, Michael D.; Mithun, Marianne; Evans, Nicholas (2017). The Oxford handbook of polysynthesis. Oxford. p. 312. ISBN   9780199683208.
5. Sands, Kristina (1996). The ergative in Proto-Australian. München: Lincom Europa. p. 43. ISBN   9783895860539.
6. Abley, Mark (2003). Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages. Toronto, ON: Random House Canada. ISBN   0679311017.

External links

• Marri Ngarr at the Dalylanguages.org website.