Questions tagged [australian-languages]
For questions about the langauges and language families used in Australia by the Australian Aboriginees.
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Semantic drift between wood, fire-wood and fire
Following the discussion about question related, because comments aren't intended for extended discussion: Can you provide research to corroborate that It is known that in Australian languages the ...
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What is (or was) the exative case?
Inspired by this finding I'd like to know what the exative case described by Taplin for south-australian languages is or was. It does not seem to be modern terminology any longer, and lists of ...
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Why are Australian Aboriginal languages said to have coronal and peripheral consonants?
In most languages the world over, place of articulation is divided in a fairly obvious way, with labials, coronals, dorsals, and laryngeals (each obviously potentially having various sublocations), ...
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What's the reconstruction of the word for fire in proto-Australian?
The word for fire in some modern Australian languages:
Tiwi yikwani
Djinang junggi
Maung yungku
Walmajarri yakun
This is strikingly similar to that in PIE:
PIE h₁...
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Has Guugu Yimithirr acquired self-relative directional terms for use in modern contexts?
As discussed at https://www.languagetrainers.com.au/blog/2014/08/languages-that-dont-use-left-or-right/, Guugu Yimithirr, an Australian aboriginal language, is one of several languages that don't ...
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What are the unique features of the Australian Aboriginal Languages compared to other world languages
Not looking phonologically but grammatically, what are the languages which would be a good reference point for starting studies in Australian Aboriginal languages? Western Desert Language? Others? Are ...
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Which (australian aboriginal?) language classifies nouns in "upright" things and "lying" things?
I'm quite sure I remember that in one class, while we were talking about aboriginal languages, the professor said that one language or more languages, classify nouns in the two categories from the ...
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Australia - absence of sibilants
Are there any sciencific/linguistic/historical theories about reasons of absence of sibilants in some Australian languages? As far as I know, sibilants are common accross world languages. Since ...
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Why is Indonesian Google Translator voice so much better than English?
Listen to those Indonesian words. The sound is very clear and native speakers agree with me it's way better than the voice of English Google Translator. I doubt Indonesian speaker uses more advanced ...
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Has a Dravido-Australic superfamily been proposed?
There seem to be striking typological similarities between Dravidian and Australian languages (see, e.g., the answers to this question Are there languages with the three-fold articulation place ...
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Australian Aboriginal Languages: Fricatives
Can anyone give me any information at all on the distribution of fricatives (or the lack thereof) in Australian aboriginal languages, nearby languages, and worldwide? Additionally, any further or ...
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Non-configurational language Nunggubuyu/Wubuy
Having read this SO answer, I am curious if another supposedly non-configurational language like Wubuy (Nunggubuyu) has been re-analyzed as "configurational". Work on it was done by Jeffrey Health in ...
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Which Non-Pama-Nyungan Australian language has the most speakers?
Australian languages are usually classified into two main groups. The first group is a large family spanning the continent, Pama-Nyungan. The other group is not a family but merely an "everything else"...
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Are there some studies or resources comparing the two living creole languages in Australia?
In Australia there are two creoles in daily use, Kriol (rop, also known as Roper River Creole etc) in the Northern Territory with about 30,000 speakers and Torres Strait Creole (tcs, also known as ...
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