The Burarra language is an Australian Aboriginal language spoken by the Burarra people of Arnhem Land. It has several dialects.
Burarra | |
---|---|
Region | Northern Territory |
Ethnicity | Burarra, Gadjalivia |
Native speakers | 1,229 (2021 census)[1] |
Arnhem?
| |
Dialects |
|
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | bvr |
Glottolog | bura1267 |
AIATSIS[2] | N82 |
ELP | Burarra |
Other names and spellings include Barera, Bawera, Burada, Bureda, Burera, An-barra (Anbarra), Gidjingaliya, Gu-jingarliya, Gu-jarlabiya, Gun-Guragone (also used for Guragone), Jikai, Tchikai.
The Djangu people have a Burarra clan, which is sometimes confused with this language.[3]
Burarra is a prefixing non-Pama-Nyungan language. Along with Gurr-goni, it makes up the Burarran branch of the Maningrida language family (which also includes Ndjébbana and Na-kara).[4][5][6]
The Burarra people are from the Blyth and Cadell River regions of Central and North-central Arnhem Land, but many now reside further west in Maningrida township at the mouth of the Liverpool River.[4][7]
Glasgow (1994) distinguishes three dialects of Burarra: Gun-nartpa (Mu-golarra / Mukarli group from the Cadell River region), Gun-narta (An-barra, western side of the mouth of the Blythe River), and Gun-narda (Martay, eastern side of the Blythe River). These dialect names derive from each dialect's word for the demonstrative "that". She further notes that the two latter dialects (Gun-narta and Gun-narda) are frequently grouped together and referred to by their eastern neighbours as "Burarra", and by themselves as "Gu-jingarliya" ('language'/'with tongue').
Green (1987) distinguishes two dialects: Gun-nartpa and Burarra (Gu-jingarliya), but notes that noticeable dialectal differences exist within the group of Burarra speakers.
Labial | Alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Plosive | fortis | p | t | ʈ | c | k |
lenis | b | d | ɖ | ɟ | g | |
Nasal | m | n | ɳ | ɲ | ŋ | |
Lateral | l | ɭ | ||||
Rhotic | r | ɻ | ||||
Glide | w | j |
In most cases, fortis and lenis refers to the voicing in consonants where fortis is voiceless and lenis is voiced.[9] In this case, plosives are distinguished by intra-oral peak pressure and stricture duration. Fortis consonants are usually longer in duration and have a greater intra-oral pressure while lenis consonants can often be pronounced as fricatives or approximants. The Burarra language also allows for the clustering of consonants.[8]
Burara has a five vowel system.
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
Close | i | u | |
Open-mid | æ~ɛ | ɔ | |
Open | a |
The vowels can be realized as:
Burarra is a prefixing, multiple-classifying language. Verbs co-reference their subjects and objects through the use of prefixes, and inflect for tense and status. Serial verbs can be used to express categories like aspect, compound action and causation.[4]
Nouns inflect for case and belong to one of four noun classes (an-, jin-, mun- and gun-).[4][7]