Tiwi

Tiwi is a language isolate spoken in Australia, by about 2,040 people. Glottolog rates it shifting.

Tiwi · 11.6°S 130.9°E

An isolate: no relationship to any other known language has been demonstrated.

Tiwi ( TEE-wee) is an Australian Aboriginal language spoken by the Tiwi people on the Tiwi Islands, within sight of the coast of northern Australia. It is one of about 10% of Australian languages still being frequently learned by children.

Traditional Tiwi, spoken by people over the age of fifty by 2005, is a polysynthetic language. However, this grammatical complexity has been lost among younger generations. Tiwi has around one hundred nominals that can be incorporated into verbs, most of them quite different from the corresponding free forms. It is spoken by around 2,500 people.

Tiwi has long been regarded as a language isolate due to its large scale of linguistic differences from other languages in the mainland Australia regions. However, recent research using historical linguistic techniques suggests that the Tiwi language might be under the Gunwinyguan family (a language family that consists of languages primarily spoken in North Central Australia).

From Wikipedia · Tiwi language · CC BY-SA 4.0

Words in Tiwi

Meaning	Word	Romanization
name	yintaNa*
eye	-akirli-
ear	mikataNa*
nose	yirringintamura
tooth	yiNkana*
tongue	yimitaLla*
hand	yikaLa*
blood	matipani*
bone	pwata*
skin	mipura*
knee	yimpula*
breast	pulaLti*
liver	pwatukuLa*
water	kukuni
fire	yikwani*
sun	yiminga
star	tapaliNa*
stone	waLaNa*
mountain	tipi4uni*
tree	puLi4r3riNa*
leaf	wiyini*
night	tapinamini*
dog	kitarringani
fish	miputi*
louse	mimpini*
one	yati*
I	Nia*
you	Ni4ta*
we	mua*
drink	maNapa*