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German Lutheran Missionaries and the Linguistic Description of Central Australian Languages 1890-1910

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German Lutheran Missionaries and the Linguistic Description of Central Australian Languages 1890-1910 German Lutheran Missionaries and the linguistic description of Central Australian languages 1890-1910 David Campbell Moore B.A. (Hons.), M.A. This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of The University of Western Australia School of Social Sciences Linguistics 2019 ii Thesis Declaration I, David Campbell Moore, certify that: This thesis has been substantially accomplished during enrolment in this degree. This thesis does not contain material which has been submitted for the award of any other degree or diploma in my name, in any university or other tertiary institution. In the future, no part of this thesis will be used in a submission in my name, for any other degree or diploma in any university or other tertiary institution without the prior approval of The University of Western Australia and where applicable, any partner institution responsible for the joint-award of this degree. This thesis does not contain any material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference has been made in the text and, where relevant, in the Authorship Declaration that follows. This thesis does not violate or infringe any copyright, trademark, patent, or other rights whatsoever of any person. This thesis contains published work and/or work prepared for publication, some of which has been co-authored. Signature: 15th March 2019 iii Abstract This thesis establishes a basis for the scholarly interpretation and evaluation of early missionary descriptions of Aranda language by relating it to the missionaries’ training, to their goals, and to the theoretical and broader intellectual context of contemporary Germany and Australia. The sources that are examined are the grammars, dictionaries, texts and translations that were compiled between 1890 and 1910. German Lutheran missionaries established the Hermannsburg Mission at Ntaria in the Northern Territory of South Australia in 1877, and began to learn, translate and describe the Aranda and Luritja languages. The primary aim of the missionaries was the translation of the Bible and hymn books, for which they undertook lexical and grammatical analyses of the target languages. The missionary Reverend Hermann Kempe, who was trained at Hermannsburg Mission Institute in Germany, published a detailed grammatical description and wordlist, and religious translations into Aranda. His successor Carl Strehlow was trained at Neuendettelsau Mission Institute in Franconia (Bavaria). With the guidance of a mentor in Germany, Freiherr Moritz von Leonhardi, Strehlow also undertook research with a more scholarly focus, collecting a large number of Aranda and Luritja traditional texts which were published in the journal Globus and in his Die Aranda. A dictionary and grammar were intended as part of this collection but were not published. The thesis consists of two parts. The first focuses on the missionaries’ training and its intellectual context: Paper 1: The missionaries were influenced by the Lutheran Reformation with Martin Luther’s focus upon authentic translation into vernacular languages, critical for the development of translation theory in Germany. Luther’s successor Phillip Melanchthon enshrined humanism in Lutheran education with a strong focus upon the study of ancient languages. Paper 2: Missionary translation and philology was closely connected with theology. Rather than predecessors of modern anthropologists, they are more accurately described as ‘cultural iv translators’. At times, the research goals of missionaries were in conflict with their role as missionaries. Paper 3: The Ntaria missionaries brought to Australia language ideologies which were characteristic of the German philosophy of language promoted by the Lutheran philosopher JG Herder. These included the inseparability of language and thought, the importance of actual language use as a basis for learning and analysis, and the complexity and diversity of languages. Paper 4: This tradition developed the science of philology to a pinnacle in Germany, from where it was extended from the classical and biblical languages to languages of India, Africa, the Americas and Australia. It was taught with theology in the mission institutes. Paper 5: The linguistic work of the Ntaria missionaries and their humanist philology stands in contrast to that of other researchers of Central Australian languages who adopted an increasingly positivist orientation to linguistic research, influenced by the natural sciences. The second part of this thesis focuses on specific aspects of Aranda language in missionary descriptions and translations: Paper 6: The missionaries attempted to develop theological key terms for Aranda. They adopted Altjira as ‘God’, a problematic choice for Aranda which was not adopted for other languages. Continuing Kempe’s work, Strehlow initially focused upon lexical development in religious translation, replacing loanwords with Aranda terms. Paper 7: The incommensurability and untranslatability of terms between Aranda and German is explored, focusing upon Strehlow’s realisation that ‘Dreaming’ was a mis- translation of Altjira. Paper 8: Strehlow’s grammatical analysis is known from his unpublished materials, and a short published response to another grammatical description. His texts and translations better reveal Strehlow’s understanding of the grammar. Strehlow’s Neuendettelsau training facilitated his understanding of complex clauses and syntax which can be traced to the explicit teaching of grammar there. v Paper 9: The interlinear texts in Strehlow’s seven volume Die Aranda und Loritja-Stämme in Zentral-Australien are the most outstanding contribution of the Neuendettelsau missionaries to the linguistic description of Central Australian languages but require interpretation because of the way that they were recorded and edited. Paper 10: Uniform orthographies were used to represent the sounds of Australian languages decades before the elaboration and widespread use of phonetic alphabets in Australia. Paper 11: The Ntaria missionaries developed a uniform orthography to represent the language. The Mission orthography is different in nature to the modern phonemic orthographies of Aranda, but a comparison reveals the missionaries’ systematic and principled approach to writing Aranda. vi Table of Contents Thesis Declaration iii Abstract iv Acknowledgements; Learning Languages ix Thesis papers; Travels and Talks xiii Authorship Declaration: Co-authored Publication xvi Map of Central Australia xvii Introduction 1 Timeline 18 1. 1. The Reformation, Lutheran tradition, and missionary linguistics 21 2. 2. Translation in Indigenous Cultures 39 3. 3. Language ideologies in Central Australia 1890-1910: reflections of the German philosophy 79 of language 4. 4. The formation of Central Australian missionary linguists 101 5. 5. Crosscurrents in Linguistic research: Humanism and Positivism in Central Australia 1890-1910 147 The translation of words 165 6. 6. The wanderings of Altjira, Christianity and the translation of sacred words in Central Australia. 167 7. 7. Altjira, Dream and God. 196 Texts and grammar 228 8. 8. Developments in the grammatical analysis of Central Australian languages 1890-1910 230 9. 9. Legends living in narratives: Texts in the documentation of Central Australian Languages 1890- 294 1910 Phonetics and orthography 320 10. 10. Uniform orthographies and phonetics in Central Australia 1890-1910 322 11. 11. The Mission Orthography in Carl Strehlow’s Dictionary 355 Conclusion 397 vii Acknowledgements This research was supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship from 2014 to 2017. Overseas travel was supported by Student Travel Grants. I would like to thank my supervisors at University of Western Australia, Dr John Henderson and Associate Professor Marie-Eve Ritz for their invaluable help with completing this thesis. Marie-Eve has particularly assisted me with understanding grammar and the European language background of the missionaries. John’s detailed knowledge of Arrernte has been of critical importance to the research. I am privileged to learn from them. My mentors have guided me through the first completed thesis by publication for UWA Linguistics and the first UWA Linguistics viva voce examination. An occasional visitor to the Crawley Campus, I have worked 2500 km away in the Central Desert region of the Northern Territory. That has meant that my contact with UWA Linguistics has been an important connection to the discipline. Early drafts of the thesis publications were presented at four Postgraduate Seminars held in the Department of Linguistics at UWA. I have learned much from Postgraduate Seminars at UWA since I started Postgraduate study there in 2005. Dr Celeste Rodriguez Louro organised seminars on using technology and social media. Dr Maïa Ponsonnet advised on two draft papers. Fellow candidates were Daniel Midgely and Luisa Miceli and fellow Postgraduate Office Room 2.51 dwellers Sophie Richard, Sana Bharadwaj, Amanda Hamilton- Hollaway and Connor Brown. Amy Budrikis was also on the Limina committee at UWA which organised the conference in which I participated in July 2017. I wish to thank all the staff at the Graduate Research School, the Faculty of Arts and School of Social Sciences for help over the years and the staff at the Reid Library at UWA. Former UWA Postgrad Peter Hill rang from Port Hedland every two weeks with important encouragement and advice: “Write!” He had lived at Ltyentye Apurte (Santa Teresa) and was familiar
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