The Mati Ke , also known as the Magatige , are an Aboriginal Australian people, whose traditional lands are located in the Wadeye area in the Northern Territory . Their language is in serious danger of extinction , but there is a language revival project under way to preserve it.
7-597: Mati Ke , also known as Magati-Ge, Magadige, Marti Ke, Magati Gair, is classified as one of the Western Daly languages , and bearing close affinities to Marringarr and Marrithiyel . In 1983 around 30 fluent speakers of the language survived, and by the early 2000s, some 50 people were thought to still speak some of it as a second or third language. By the early 2000s the last completely fluent speakers were reckoned to be three people, Johnny Chula, Patrick Nudjulu and his sister Agatha Perdjert, both of whom who moved back to
14-627: A government-built outstation at Kuy on the Shores facing the Timor Sea . Though living in close proximity to one another, they never spoke it together since in their social system communication between brother and sister after puberty was forbidden. The clan and totem system was described by the Norwegian ethnologist Johannes Falkenberg in 1962, based on fieldwork conducted in 1950. The Mati Ke were one of several tribes living south of Wadeye between
21-550: Is a moribund Australian Aboriginal language spoken along the northwest coast of the Northern Territory . Marti Ke ( Magati Ke , Matige , Magadige , Mati Ke , also Magati-ge, Magati Gair) lies in the same language category. It is or was spoken by the Mati Ke people. As of 2020 it is included in a language revival project which aims to preserve critically endangered languages. The language has been spoken in
28-568: Is about 100, and there are 50 second language users. As the language is almost non-existent to date, linguists have been working on collecting information and recording the voices of the remaining speakers. As of 2020 , Mati Ke is one of 20 languages prioritised as part of the Priority Languages Support Project, being undertaken by First Languages Australia and funded by the Department of Communications and
35-492: The Moyle and Fitzmaurice rivers . Many moved to Wadeye when a Catholic mission was set up there in the 1930s. Most descendants of the tribe dropped using their Mati Ke speech and adopted the majority language in the area, Murrinh-Patha , which is spoken by about 2500 people and serves as a lingua franca for several other ethnic groups. Mati Ke language The Maringarr language ( Marri Ngarr , Marenggar , Maringa )
42-482: The Northern Territory , Wadeye , along Timor Sea, coast south from Moyle River estuary to Port Keats, southwest of Darwin . According to the Language Database, as of 2005 Mati Ke language had a population of three (Patrick Nudjulu, Johnny Chula, Agatha Perdjert). Mati Ke speakers have primarily switched to use of English and the flourishing Aboriginal language Murrinh-Patha . The ethnic population
49-822: The Arts . The project aims to "identify and document critically-endangered languages — those languages for which little or no documentation exists, where no recordings have previously been made, but where there are living speakers". The vocabulary is limited, therefore the relations and positioning of the words matter to make sense of the construction according to the situation. It is a polysynthetic language. niwinj 3DU yi that gudingi-derrkurr-fingi-gawunh 3DU . SBJ . DI . R . IPFV -sharpen-now- 3DU . SBJ . SIT . R niwinj yi gudingi-derrkurr-fingi-gawunh 3DU that 3DU.SBJ.DI.R.IPFV-sharpen-now-3DU.SBJ.SIT.R 'Those two fellas are sharpening their knives now.' Marringarr also contains ergativity , which
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