Kunjen language

Kunjen, or Uw, is a Paman language spoken on the Cape York Peninsula of Queensland, Australia, by the Uw Oykangand, Olkola, and related Aboriginal Australian peoples. It is closely related to Kuuk Thaayorre, and perhaps Kuuk Yak.

Dialects

Two of its dialects, Uw Olkola (Olgolo) and Uw Oykangand (Koko Wanggara), are very close, being mutually intelligible and sharing 97% of their core vocabulary. Another two, Ogh-Undjan and Kawarrangg, are also close, but somewhat more distant from the first pair. Kokinj (Kokiny) is a subdialect of Ogh-Undjan. A fifth variety, Athima, is poorly attested.

Below is a table showing the mutual intelligibility in vocabulary between the Kunjen dialects, based on a list of 100 basic words.

Uw Oykangand	97%	44%	38%
Uw Olkola		43%	38%
Ogh-Undjan			82%
Kawarrangg

A small dictionary of Kunjen has been compiled by Philip Hamilton. A great majority of words begin with a vowel (>96%), similar to the situation in distantly-related Arrernte. Exceptions include kinship terms and loanwords. Syllable onsets are thought to be present in all languages, so their absence in native lexicon is highly notable.

Respect register

As in many other Australian languages, such as Dyirbal, Kunjen also has a respect register, which is a polite way of speaking with a potential mother-in-law and is called Olkel-Ilmbanhthi. Most of the vocabulary is replaced, while affixes and function words are kept.

Phonology

Vowels

Kunjen has 5 vowels:

Vowels

	Front	Back
	Unrounded	Rounded
Close	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Mid	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Open	Template:IPA link

There is a lexical vowel harmony constraint in Kunjen: Close and mid vowels do not co-occur in a word.

Consonants

Kunjen has 27 consonants:

Consonants

		Peripheral		Laminal		Apical
		Bilabial	Velar	Palatal	Dental	Alveolar	Retroflex
Plosive	voiceless	Template:IPAlink Template:Grapheme	Template:IPAlink Template:Grapheme	Template:IPAlink Template:Grapheme	Template:IPAlink Template:Grapheme	Template:IPAlink Template:Grapheme
	voiced	Template:IPAlink Template:Grapheme	Template:IPAlink Template:Grapheme	Template:IPAlink Template:Grapheme	Template:IPAlink Template:Grapheme	Template:IPAlink Template:Grapheme
Nasal	plain	Template:IPAlink Template:Grapheme	Template:IPAlink Template:Grapheme	Template:IPAlink Template:Grapheme	Template:IPAlink Template:Grapheme	Template:IPAlink Template:Grapheme
	prestopped	Template:IPAlink Template:Grapheme	Template:IPAlink Template:Grapheme	Template:IPAlink Template:Grapheme	Template:IPAlink Template:Grapheme	Template:IPAlink Template:Grapheme
Fricative		Template:IPAlink Template:Grapheme	Template:IPAlink Template:Grapheme		Template:IPAlink Template:Grapheme
Trill						Template:IPAlink Template:Grapheme
Approximant	Central	Template:IPAlink Template:Grapheme		Template:IPAlink Template:Grapheme			Template:IPAlink Template:Grapheme
	Lateral			Template:IPAlink Template:Grapheme	Template:IPAlink Template:Grapheme	Template:IPAlink Template:Grapheme

In popular culture

The Uw Olkola word for the freshwater crocodile, , was used as the name of a tribe on the second season of the American reality television series, Survivor in 2001.

References

• Template:Self-published source