| Yukulta | |
|---|---|
| Ganggalida | |
| Region | Queensland |
| Ethnicity | Yukulta,Nguburinji |
Native speakers | 1 full speaker (2007)[1] 51-250 (2018-19)[2] |
Macro-Pama–Nyungan?
| |
| Dialects |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Either:gcd – Ganggalidanny – Nyangga/Yangkaal (two different languages covered by [nny]) |
| Glottolog | gang1267 Ganggalidanyan1300 Yangkaal |
| AIATSIS[2] | G34 Ganggalida,G19 Nguburinji |
| ELP | Ganggalida |
 Traditional lands of the Yukulta people | |
| This article containsIPA phonetic symbols. Without properrendering support, you may seequestion marks, boxes, or other symbols instead ofUnicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. | |
TheYukulta language, also speltYugulda,Yokula,Yukala,Jugula, andJakula, and also known asGanggalidda (Kangkalita,Ganggalida), is aTangkic language spoken inQueensland andNorthern Territory, Australia. It was spoken by theYukulta people, whose traditional lands lie on the southern coast of theGulf of Carpentaria.[3]
Nguburinji (Ngubirindi) is regarded as a dialect of the same language, spoken by theNguburinji people. It is now extinct.
Yukulta is a member of theTangkic language group, along withKayardild,Lardil andYangkaal, all from theNorth Wellesley Islands and adjoining mainland. The languages are mutually intelligible, andtangka means "person" in all four languages).[4] These languages were classified as Tangkic byGeoffrey O'Grady, withCarl andFlo Voegelin(1966).[5]
Nicholas Evans andGavan Breen see Yukulta and Nguburinji as dialects of the same language.[4] Nguburinji is known only through a word list byWalter Roth (1897),[6] which shares 90 per cent of its vocabulary with present-day Yukulta.[4]
| Peripheral | Laminal | Apical | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bilabial | Velar | Palatal | Dental | Alveolar | Retroflex | |
| Plosive | p | k | c | t̪ | t | ʈ |
| Nasal | m | ŋ | ɲ | n̪ | n | ɳ |
| Rhotic | r | ɽ | ||||
| Lateral | l | ɭ | ||||
| Approximant | ɰ | j | ||||
It is not clear if the two rhotics are trill and flap, or flap and approximant.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i iː | u uː | |
| Low | a aː |
Yukulta has three vowels, each with a long and short variant:a,i, andu.
There are many different rules governing what happens to each Yukulta phoneme in any given environment, so most morphemes have at least two allomorphs.
All Yukulta nouns and adjectives consist of a root and an inflectional ending. Nouns and the adjectives that go along with them have to agree in their endings. Yukulta nominals can take five case-endings: absolutive, ergative/locative, dative, ablative and allative. As in Kayardild, each morphological ending can be realized as various allomorphs, depending on the phonological environment. There can be many versions of any given morpheme. The absolutive marker, for instance, can be realized as any of eight allomorphs.
In addition to the inflectional endings that Yukulta nominals can take, there are a few important derivational affixes that occur between the root and the inflectional ending. Like the inflectional endings, each has a few different allomorphs.
A Yukulta free pronoun consists of a root, case suffix, and possibly an inclusivity marker and/or a marker to distinguish between dual and plural (singular and exclusive are unmarked characteristics). Free pronouns have a different case-system than nominals, with intransitive and transitive subjects and transitive objects taking thenominative ending, semi-transitive objects taking theobjective ending, as well asbenefactive,locative,allative andablative endings.
Yukulta also has another sort of pronoun—bound pronouns—which occur as part of the clitic complex. Unlike free pronouns, bound pronouns do not consist of a stem and inflectional endings—each case form is separate. The form depends on a number of considerations, including the number of the subject of a verb, and the number, person, and exclusivity of the subject.
The clitic complex attaches to the first constituent of every Yukulta sentence that does not "emphasize a permanent, timeless state of affairs."[7] It consists of bound pronouns corresponding to each party involved in the action, a transitivity marker, and a tense-aspect marker.
All Yukulta verbs are either transitive or intransitive, with each group having a different conjugation pattern. The intransitive groups can be split into purely intransitive verbs and semi-transitive verbs, which take a dative object and an absolutive subject. There are three moods: indicative, imperative and desiderative. There is a further distinction within the imperative mood between imperative and hortatory, and within the desiderative mood between intent and desire.
Yukulta word order is very free, in large part due to its relatively high level of inflection.
Some types of subordinate clauses in Yukulta, such as conditional clauses ("if...") and reason clauses ("because...") are simply marked by a clitic attaching to the first constituent. For clauses of time and relative clauses, Yukulta uses the clitic-ŋala along with the rest of the clitic complex.