Kayardild language

Kayardild is a moribund Tangkic language spoken by 43 of the Kaiadilt on the South Wellesley Islands, north west Queensland, Australia. Other members of the family include Yangkaal (spoken by the Yangkaal people), Lardil, and Yukulta (Ganggalidda).

Kayardild is a critically endangered language, considered near-extinct. In 1981, there were around fifty native speakers of Kayardild. The number of speakers of Kayardild significantly reduced since the 1940s as a result of the stolen generations. By 1981, there were fifty known native speakers. In the 2016 census, there were eight, and this number increased to 43 in 2021.

Phonology

Kayardild consonant phonemes

	Peripheral		Laminal		Apical
	Bilabial	Velar	Palatal	Dental	Alveolar	Retroflex
Plosive	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink
Nasal	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink
Trill					Template:IPAlink
Lateral					Template:IPAlink
Approximant	Template:IPAlink		Template:IPAlink		Template:IPAlink

Kayardild vowel phonemes

	Front	Back
Close	Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink
Open	Template:IPAlink Template:IPAlink

Grammar

Kayardild is known for its many unusual case phenomena, including case stacking of up to four levels, the use of clause-level case to signal interclausal relations and pragmatic factors, and another set of 'verbal case' endings which convert their hosts from nouns into verbs morphologically. It is also well-known for only allowing subordination one level deep. Kayardild is the only known spoken language where tense markers appear on both nouns and verbs.

Speakers tend to have a preference for subject–object–verb word order.

Further reading

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