Jiwarli dialect

Not to be confused with Juwarliny dialect, see Mangarla language.

Jiwarli (also spelt Djiwarli, Tjiwarli) is an Australian Aboriginal language formerly spoken in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. It is a variety of the Mantharta language of the large Pama–Nyungan family.

Jiwarli
Region	Western Australia
Ethnicity	Jiwarli
Extinct	April 1986, with the death of Jack Butler
Language family	Pama–Nyungan Kanyara–Mantharta Mantharta Jiwarli
Language codes
ISO 639-3	dze
Glottolog	djiw1241
AIATSIS	W28
ELP	Jiwarli

The last native speaker of Jiwarli, Jack Butler, died in April 1986. Prof Peter K. Austin (Linguistics Department, SOAS) collected all the available material on Jiwarli during fieldwork with Jack Butler 1978–1985. He has published a volume of texts on the language and a bilingual dictionary (Jiwarli-English with English-Jiwarli finderlist); both are currently out of print.

Phonology

Vowels

	Front	Back
High	i, iː	u, uː
Low	a, aː

Consonants

	Peripheral		Laminal		Apical
	Bilabial	Velar	Palatal	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar
Stop	p	k	c	t̪	t	ʈ
Nasal	m	ŋ	ɲ	n̪	n	ɳ
Lateral			ʎ	l̪	l	ɭ
Rhotic					r	ɻ
Semivowel	w		j

Phonotactics

Word-initially, only non-apical stops, nasals and glides are allowed; that is, words may only begin with one of {/p k j th m ng nh w y/}. Words may not begin with vowels.

All words end in vowels. Roots may end on a consonant, however -pa is added to all roots ending in l rl rr and -ma is added to all roots ending in a nasal that would violate the vowel-final word constraint.

External links

• Information on the Jiwarli language and culture
• Thieberger, Nicholas. "4.4.2 Jiwarli". Handbook of WA Aboriginal Languages South of the Kimberley Region (PDF). Pacific Linguistics. pp. 106–108. Series C - 124.