Wagiman language

Spoken in

• Australian languages Gunwinyguan Wagiman

WAQ

Wagiman one of the Gunwinyguan languages ​​and is spoken in the Northern Territory of Australia of the same name Aborigines. This language is seriously endangered as only 2000 were about 10 speakers.

History

Before the colonization of Australia, the country of Wagiman included several hundred square kilometers, which is why the language was correspondingly widespread. However, their language was displaced more and more by the English in the context of colonization and therefore is now endangered. Another reason for the extinction of the Wagiman, is that most indigenous Aborigines instead of Wagiman use the more widely used Mayali. Today there are only about 10 speakers, which is why the Wagiman 2010 also received an entry in one of the company products for Threatened Peoples, treated the endangered languages ​​.

Grammar

Morphology

The Wagiman is a very rich language of morphemes. Morphemes are used here in very many words, to specify additional information about the context.

Noun

Nouns end in Wagiman often with morphemes to specify more information about the noun itself. An example:

The place name Katherine here the morpheme - gunda has been attached. This represents the ablative and informed that they came from Katherine.

Verbs

Verbs exist, such as the noun, also largely of composite morphemes. An example:

Here, the verb ba - Nawu - jan, that they were trying to give. Because of ba - shows that it was they who did it. - Nawu - sets give the actual verb dar. The last part of the word, - jan, indicates that what they were doing, what has happened in the past. This structure of the verb ( 1 morpheme: morpheme Who 2: What 3 morpheme: When) is typical of the language of the Wagiman and occurs very frequently.