Kunjen language facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Kunjen |
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| Uw | ||||
| Native to | Australia | |||
| Region | Cape York Peninsula, Queensland | |||
| Ethnicity | Ngundjan (Ogh-Undjan), Uw Oykangand, Olkola | |||
| Native speakers | 2 (2005)aiatsis | |||
| Language family |
Pama–Nyungan
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| Dialects |
Uw Oykangand
Uw Olkola
Ogh-Undjan
Kawarrang
Athina
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| AIATSIS | Y83 Kunjen (cover term), Y188, Y237 | |||
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Kunjen, also called Uw, is an Aboriginal language from Australia. It's spoken by people on the Cape York Peninsula in Queensland. It's part of the Paman language family and is similar to languages like Kuuk Thaayorre. Sadly, very few people speak Kunjen today.
Contents
Different Ways of Speaking: Dialects
Kunjen has several different ways of speaking it, called dialects. These are like different versions of the same language.
Main Kunjen Dialects
Two of the main dialects are Uw Olkola and Uw Oykangand. These two are very much alike. People who speak one can usually understand the other easily. They share almost all of their basic words, about 97% of them!
Other dialects, like Ogh-Undjan and Kawarrangg, are also similar to each other. However, they are a bit different from Uw Olkola and Uw Oykangand. Kokinj is a smaller version of Ogh-Undjan. There's also a fifth dialect called Athima, but we don't know much about it.
How Dialects Understand Each Other
Here's how much the Kunjen dialects share in their words:
- Uw Oykangand and Uw Olkola understand each other almost perfectly (97%).
- Ogh-Undjan and Kawarrangg also understand each other very well (82%).
- But when it comes to the first pair (Uw Oykangand/Uw Olkola) and the second pair (Ogh-Undjan/Kawarrangg), they understand each other much less. For example, Uw Oykangand speakers only understand about 44% of Ogh-Undjan words.
Kunjen Words
A small dictionary of Kunjen words has been put together by Philip Hamilton. One very interesting thing about Kunjen words is that most of them (more than 96%) start with a vowel, like 'a', 'e', 'i', 'o', or 'u'. This is quite unusual for a language! Words that don't start with a vowel are often words about family members or words borrowed from other languages.
Speaking with Respect
Like many other Indigenous Australian languages, Kunjen has a special way of speaking when you need to show respect. This is called Olkel-Ilmbanhthi. It's often used when talking to a potential mother-in-law.
When you use Olkel-Ilmbanhthi, many of the words change, but the small parts of words that show things like past tense or how a word is used (called affixes) stay the same.
Here's an example of a normal sentence in Uw Oykangand:
- Alka-nhdh idu-rr ay
- spear-with spear-past I
- "I speared it with a spear"
And here's the same sentence in the respectful Olkel-Ilmbanhthi way:
- Udnga-nhdh yanganyunyja-rr ay
- spear-with spear-past I
- "I speared it with a spear"
As you can see, the words for "spear" and "speared" change, but the parts that mean "with" (nhdh) and "past" (rr), and the word "I" (ay), stay the same.
Sounds of Kunjen
Every language has its own set of sounds, like vowels and consonants.
Vowel Sounds
Kunjen has 5 vowel sounds. These are sounds like the 'a' in "cat" or the 'ee' in "tree". An interesting rule in Kunjen is that certain vowel sounds don't appear together in the same word. For example, you won't find both a "close" vowel (like 'i' or 'u') and a "mid" vowel (like 'e' or 'o') in the same word.
Consonant Sounds
Kunjen has 27 consonant sounds. These are sounds like 'b', 'd', 'k', 'm', 'n', and 's'. Some of these sounds might be different from the consonant sounds you are used to in English.
Kunjen in Pop Culture
The Uw Olkola word for the freshwater crocodile is ogakor. This word was used as the name for one of the tribes in the TV show Survivor. This happened in 2001 during the second season, which was called Survivor: The Australian Outback.
See also
In Spanish: Idioma kunjen para niños
