Bunuba language

Bunuba
Region	Western Australia
Ethnicity	Bunuba
Native speakers	40 (2005) to 110 (2006 census)[1]
Language family	Bunuban Bunuba;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	bck
Glottolog	buna1275[2]
AIATSIS[1]	K5

Bunuba (Bunaba, Punuba, Punapa) is an Australian Aboriginal language spoken by some 160 older Bunuba adults, most of whom live in Junjuwa, an Aboriginal community in Fitzroy Crossing in Western Australia. Bunuba is not related to the Pama-Nyungan language family that spans the majority of Australia, though it is a relative of Guniyandi.[3]

Due to the growing concern of their language becoming extinct, the elders make an effort by passing on stories to their younger people around the campfires at night. This is a way the Bunuba elders prevent the extinction of their language, passing it down through generations.[4]

Phonology

Bunuba has only three basic vowel phonemes: /i, a, u/. /a/ is the only vowel demonstrating contrastive vowel length. There are no other vowel phonemes.[5]

Consonants
	Peripheral		Laminal		Apical
	Labial	Velar	Palatal	Dental	Alveolar	Retroflex
Stop	p	k		t̪	t	ʈ
Nasal	m	ŋ		n̪	n	ɳ
Trill					r
Lateral					l	ɭ
Approximant			j			ɻ

References

K5 Bunuba at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Bunaba". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
Knight, Emily (2008). "7. Hyperpolysemy in Bunuba, a Polysynthetic Language of the Kimberley, Western Australia". In Goddard, Cliff (ed.). Cross-Linguistic Semantics. Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjamins Publishing Company. pp. 206. ISBN 9789027205698.
Language: Bunuba, Australia, retrieved 29 June 2019
Dixon, R.M.W.; Blake, Barry J., eds. (31 December 1983). Handbook of Australian Languages. PHOBILE 2.0. 1. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. doi:10.1075/z.hal3. ISBN 9789027220059.

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[AIATSIS-1] K5 Bunuba at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies

[Glottolog-2] Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Bunaba". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

[3] Knight, Emily (2008). "7. Hyperpolysemy in Bunuba, a Polysynthetic Language of the Kimberley, Western Australia". In Goddard, Cliff (ed.). Cross-Linguistic Semantics. Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjamins Publishing Company. pp. 206. ISBN 9789027205698.

[4] Language: Bunuba, Australia, retrieved 29 June 2019

[5] Dixon, R.M.W.; Blake, Barry J., eds. (31 December 1983). Handbook of Australian Languages. PHOBILE 2.0. 1. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. doi:10.1075/z.hal3. ISBN 9789027220059.