- Iwaidja language
language
name=Iwaidja
region=Croker Island ,Northern Territory
speakers=150
familycolor=Australian
fam1=Iwaidjan
fam2=Iwaidjic
fam3=Warrkbi
iso2=aus|iso3=ibdIwaidja, in phonemic spelling "Iwaja," is an Australian language with about 150 speakers in northernmost Australia. Historically from the base of the
Cobourg Peninsula , it is now spoken onCroker Island . It is still being learned by children.Phonology
Iwaidja has three vowels, /a, i, u/, and the following consonants:
emantics
The Iwaidja languages are nearly unique among the languages of the world in using verbs for kin terms. Nouns are used for direct address, but transitive verbs in all other cases. In English something similar is done in special cases: "he fathered a child; she mothers him too much." But these do not indicate social relationships in English. For example, "he fathered a child" says nothing about whether he is the man the child calls "father". An Iwaidja speaker, on the other hand, says "I nephew her" to mean "she is my aunt". Because these are verbs, they can be inflected for
tense . In the case of in-laws, this is equivalent to "my ex-wife" or "the bride-to-be" in English. However, with blood relations, past can only mean that the person has died, and future only that they are yet to be born.References
Nicholas Evans, 2000. "Iwaidjan, a very un-Australian language family." In "Linguistic Typology" 4, 91-142. Mouton de Gruyter.
External links
* [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=ibd Ethnologue report for Iwaidja]
* [http://www.mpi.nl/DOBES/projects/iwaidja/languages/view?searchterm=Iwaidja Documentation of endangered languages]
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