Native to Australia Native speakers 145 (2006 census) | Ethnicity Kaytetye people Signed forms Akitiri Sign Language | |
Region central Northern Territory Language family Pama–Nyungan
Arandic
Kaytetye | ||
Kaytetye (Kaititj) is an Australian Aboriginal language of central Northern Territory. The language is considered to be threatened; The language is used for face-to-face communication within all generations, but it is losing users.
Contents
The Kaytetye have (or had) a well-developed sign language.
Phonology
Kaytetye is phonologically unusual in a number of ways. Words start with vowels and end with schwa; full CV(C) syllables only occur within a word, as in the word arrkwentyarte 'three' (schwa is spelled ⟨e⟩, unless initial, in which case it is not written and often not pronounced). Stress falls on the first full syllable. There are only two productive vowels, but numerous consonants, including pre-stopped and pre-palatalized consonants.
Consonants
Consonants occur plain and labialized.
[w] is phonemically /ɰʷ/. In the orthography, /ɰ/ is written ⟨h⟩.
Vowels
/i/ is marginal.
Two-vowel systems are unusual, but occur in closely related Arrernte as well as in some Northwest Caucasian languages. It seems that the vowel system derives from an earlier one with the typical Australian /i a u/, but that *u lost its roundedness to neighboring consonants, resulting in the labialized series of consonants, while *i lost its frontness (palatal-ness) to other consonants as well, resulting in some cases in the prepalatalized series.
Grammar
Kin terms are obligatorily possessed, though with grammatically singular pronouns. There's a dyadic suffix as well:
Dual and plural pronouns distinguish clusivity as well as moiety (or 'section') and generation. That is, for a male speaker, different pronouns are used for I and my sibling, grandparent, grandchild (even generation, same moiety), I and my father, I and my brother's child (odd generation, same moiety), and I and my mother, spouse, sister's child (opposite moiety). This results in twelve pronouns for 'we':
That is, root ay-, dual suffix -la or plural -na, exclusive infix ⟨en⟩, an irregular nasal for even generation, and a suffix for same moiety -ke or opposite moiety -nthe.
Verbs include incorporated former verbs of motion that indicate direction and relative timing of someone, usually the subject of the verb. There are differences depending on whether the verb is transitive or intransitive: