Native to Australia Native speakers 3,500 (2006 census) | Region Northern Territory Standard forms Dhuwaya | |
Language family Pama–Nyungan
Yolŋu languages
Southern (Dhuwal)
Dhuwal Dialects Gupapuyngu
Gumatj
Djambarrpuyngu
Djapu
Liyagalawumirr
Guyamirlili
Dhalwangu [Dhay'yi]
Djarrwark [Dhay'yi] | ||
Dhuwal (also Dual, Duala) is one of the Yolŋu languages spoken by Aboriginal Australians in the Northern Territory, Australia. Although all Yolŋu languages are mutually intelligible to some extent, Dhuwal represents a distinct dialect continuum of eight separate varieties.
Contents
Dialects
Dialects of the Yirritja moiety are (a) Gupapuyngu and Gumatj; those of the Dhuwa moiety are (b) Djambarrpuyngu, Djapu, Liyagalawumirr, and Guyamirlili (Gwijamil). In addition, it would appear that the Dhay'yi (Dayi) dialects, (a) Dhalwangu and (b) Djarrwark, are part of the same language.
Ethnologue divides Dhuwal into four languages, plus Dayi and the contact variety Dhuwaya:
Numbers are from the 2006 census.
Dhuwaya is a stigmatized contact variant used by the younger generation in informal contexts, and is the form taught in schools, having replaced Gumatj ca. 1990.
Orthography
Probably every Australian language with speakers remaining has had an orthography developed for it, in each case in the Latin script. Sounds not found in English are usually represented by digraphs, or more rarely by diacritics, such as underlines, or extra symbols, sometimes borrowed from the International Phonetic Alphabet. Some examples are shown in the following table.