Kungkari language
Extinct Australian Aboriginal language
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kungkari (also Gunggari, Koonkerri, Kuungkari) is an extinct and unclassified Australian Aboriginal language.[1] The Kungkari language region included the landscape within the local government boundaries of the Longreach Shire Council and Blackall-Tambo Shire Council.[2]
Classification
Geographically it lay near the Barcoo River between the Karnic and Maric languages, but had no obvious connection to either; the data is too poor to draw any conclusions on classification.
Bowern (2001) mentions Kungkari as a possible Karnic language.[3]: 247
Wafer and Lissarrague (2008)[4]: 324 report that a description of Kungkari by Breen (1990)[5]: 22–64 is of Kungkari, not the similarly-named Gunggari, which was Maric.[3]
Phonology
Consonants
- The dental lateral [l̪] mainly occurs as an allophone of /l/ within the consonant cluster /lt̪/.
- /t/ may be realized as a voiced stop [d] when after /n/, or as a voiced tap [ɾ] in intervocalic positions.
Vowels
- The long [uː] only rarely occurs.[5]
