Orthography adopted
by the Murriny Patha Song Project
Murriny Patha has four vowels for which there is no
phonemic length distinction. The four vowels are listed
below.
| vowels
|
+front
|
-front
|
|
+high
|
i
|
u
|
|
-high
|
e
|
a
|
For the consonants, there are six places of articulation
and a voicing contrast for the stops. However in nasal-stop
clusters the contrast is essentially neutralised. In these
environments, rather than choose a particular series, we
represent the stops as voiced or voiceless, as we hear them
on a word-by-word basis. We recognise that certain
speakers’ pronunciations of the same word may on
occasion differ. To represent the alveolar nasal/voiced
velar stop cluster we use an apostrophe /n’g/ so as
to avoid confusion with the velar nasal /ng/.
| consonants
|
bilabial
|
dental
|
alveolar
|
retroflex
|
palatal
|
velar
|
| voiceless stop
|
p
|
th
|
t
|
rt
|
tj
|
k
|
| voiced
stop
|
b
|
dh
|
d
|
rd
|
dj
|
g
|
| nasal
|
m
|
nh
|
n
|
rn
|
ny
|
ng
|
| lateral
|
|
l
|
rl
|
|
||
|
flap/trill
|
|
rr
|
|
|||
|
glides
|
w
|
|
r
|
|
y
|
|
The above orthography differs
from the one in use at the Our Lady of the Sacred Heart school in
Wadeye (Street 1987), which has a single laminal series
and uses voiceless stops in nasal clusters.
For further information about our orthography contact
Joe
Blythe.