Kungkari (also Gunggari, Koonkerri, Kuungkari) is an extinct and unclassified Australian Aboriginal language. The Kungkari language region included the landscape within the local government boundaries of the Longreach Shire Council and Blackall-Tambo Shire Council.

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.

Wafer and Lissarrague (2008) report that a description of Kungkari by Breen (1990) is of Kungkari, not the similarly-named Gunggari, which was Maric.

Phonology

Consonants

PeripheralLaminalApical
LabialVelarDentalPalatalAlveolarRetroflex
Plosivepkctʈ
Nasalmŋɲnɳ
Rhoticr
Lateral(l̪)ʎlɭ
Approximantwjɻ
  • 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

FrontCentralBack
Highi iːu (uː)
Lowa aː
  • The long [uː] only rarely occurs.

External links