wangunh (noun)  clear weather, clear sky; sky; up in the air

wangunh in sentences

sky: Nyulu yii Waarigan wanggaamun baarrngay wangunhnganh. “Moon sang out from high up in the sky.”

clear weather: Wangunh-manaathi. “It’s cleared up.”

sky: Dawaarngay ngamu-gurraaygu wangunhnganh bulii. “All the stars will fall from the sky.”

sky: Nhulu wangunhbi minhthaathi. “He is stuck up in the sky.”

Many speakers pronounce this wangun. In old stories the sky is a physical location. That is the reason why we can say wangunhbi minhthaaya “to become stuck in the sky”. In modern speech we can use this old phraseme like this: Nhayun space probe wangunhbi minhthaathi “The space probe was lost in space”.

Phrasemes

Collocations: wangunhbi minthaaya “become stuck in the sky”

Transparent compounds, weak idioms and derivations: wangunh-manaaya “clear up” (weather)

Linguistic comment

The Waguurrga word wangunh and the Thalunthirr word jiiri originally had the same meaning, but today wangunh is all speakers’ word for “(clear) sky” and speakers use the word jiiri to mean the Christian Heaven. The reason is probably that missionaries learned jiiri on the coast and used the word in their Bible translations and hymns.