Dalabon is a Gunwinyguan language of Arnhem Land, Australia. It is a severely endangered language, with perhaps as few as three fluent speakers remaining as of 2018. Dalabon is also known as Dangbon (the Kune or Mayali name), Ngalkbun (the Jawoyn name), and Buwan (the Rembarrnga name).

Classification

Dalabon belongs to the Gunwinyguan languages branch of the Arnhem languages; its nearest relatives are Kunwinjku, Kune, Mayali (varieties often grouped together as Bininj Kunwok), and Kunbarlang. Its next closest relatives are Rembarrnga, and other languages within the Gunwinyguan family, including Jawoyn, Ngalakgan, Ngandi, Wubuy, and Enindhilyakwa.

Official status

Dalabon has no official status. Local schools spent years holding sporadic programs teaching Dalabon, but these operations didn't receive enough governmental support. Therefore, the condition of the programs is still vulnerable.

Dialect/Varieties

Given the limited number of Dalabon speakers, the study of dialects has become challenging to investigate. Speakers recall a distinction between two different types of speech, dalabon-djurrkdjurrk ("fast." "lively") and dalabon-murduk ("articulate"). However, no significant difference has been found between the two speeches.

Phonology and Orthography

Consonants

There are 22 or 23 phonemic consonants in Dalabon, depending on the phonemic status of /h/. A table containing the consonant phonemes is given below with their orthographic representation (in angle brackets).

Vowels

There are 6 vowels in Dalabon. A table containing the vowel phonemes is given below with their orthographic representation (in angle brackets).

Phonotactics

Dalabon restricts the trilled [r] and long stops to only occur word-internally. Constraints regarding the edges of a phonological word also limit the glottal stop [ʔ] from occurring word-initially. The syllable structure of Dalabon is CV(C)(C)(C), or more specifically: CV(L)(N)(h) or CV(L)(S) where: Such complex codas are not unusual, and all combinations are enumerated as follows (words and translations taken from the dictionary ).

Complex coda of two consonants

Complex coda of three consonants

Phonological processes

Dalabon has a pattern of eliding unstressed vowels and unstressed syllables. For example, the word /'cabale/ 'shoulder blade' is often realized as ['cable].

Prosody

The location of phrasal stress in Dalabon appears one or two peaks with an initial rise into the first peak at the left edge of the constituent and a final fall at the right edge of the constituent.

Grammar

Although there is no complete grammatical description of the language, a number of aspects of Dalabon grammar have been described, including its bound pronominal system, polysynthetic word structure, verb conjugations, the use of subordination strategies, nominal subclasses, the demonstrative system, and the use of optional ergativity.

Morphology

The structure of Dalabon verbs: The diminutive enclitic =wurd is derived from noun wurd 'woman's child', its reduplication wurdurd means 'child'. wurd can attach to most word classes and functions in 3 ways of meaning: to denote small objects, to add emotional connotations and to serve as pragmatic functions (especially for interactional softening). The examples are shown below. 'There is a small stone hill there.' Wa:h ka-h-rakka-ng=wurd. 'Oh, he fell over poor fellow.'

Syntax

Dalabon is a head-marking language. Dalabon has limited use of subordinate clauses, but it has a distinctive subordination strategy, which is to attach pronominal prefixes to the verb, and marked verbs are used for subordinate clause functions subordinate1: the unmarked form of prefixes to show subordinate status, used when the status is overt by other means. subordinate2: used when prefixes are the only way to show subordination. dis: disharmonic, meaning odd-numbered generations. Examples are shown below: bala-buh-ngong+boyenj-ni-nj mahkih 3pl-because-mob+big-be-PST.PFV because ‘..because there were so many of them.’ yila-h-yang-wona-wona-n yale-yu-yu. 1pl/3-REAL-voice-REDUP-hear-PRES 1pl.SUBORD-REDUP-sleep.PRES ‘we heard his(dingo's) voice as we were sleeping.’ karrkkany ka-h-ngun kaye-do-n. hawk.sp. 3/3l-REAL-eat.PRES 3.SUBORD-die-PRES ‘the hawk eats animals that die.’

Vocabulary