Linguistics 203 - Languages of the World Dyirbal and other Aboriginal Australian Languages

Dyirbal  Belongs to Pama-Nyungan language family  Spoken in North East Queensland in Australia  About 40 speakers remaining in the 1980s (www.ethnologue.com)

1. Until the 1930s, had „mother-in-law‟ language for speaking with „taboo‟ relatives.

2. Noun class distinction (Dixon 1972:47, 308, Lyovin 1997:285, Lakoff 1987:92-23))  All nouns belong to one of four classes and are preceded by a class marker  Membership in a noun class is not random class semantic examples marker category men, kangaroos, possums, most snakes and fishes, 1 bayi some birds, most insects, the moon, storms, boomerangs, money, mats, rainbows, some spears women, fire and water (and things related), bandicoots (type of marsupial), some snakes and fishes, most 2 balan birds, dogs, platypuses, echidna (anteaters), fireflies, hairy mary grub, snails, grasshoppers, crickets, the sun, stars, shields, some spears, some trees (edible) fruits and vegetables, trees bearing (edible) 3 balam fruits, cigarettes, wine, cake everything else; e.g. trees without edible fruits, grass, 4 bala sand, mud, stones, bees, meat, wind, tomahawks, noises, languages, body parts

 despite semantic classes, nouns may belong to an unexpected class for various reasons

i. myth or belief associates a noun with a characteristic of some noun class

ii. subset of nouns bearing characteristic lacking in rest of set (harmfulness being the most common such characteristic)

iii. one‟s domain of experience with an object

Linguistics 203 - Languages of the World Dyirbal and other Aboriginal Australian Languages

‘Speaking’ vs. ‘Owning’ a language (Evans 2001, discussing fieldwork northern Australia)  Multilingualism is the norm.

 There is a societal emphasis on language knowledge and language „ownership‟.

 Language „ownership‟ shows clan membership and status, and land affiliation.

 Right to be called a „speaker‟ of a language derived through clan membership or land ownership.

 Language „owners‟ are not always the best speakers.

 Politics plays a role in language „ownership‟, right to speak it, etc.

 Speakers judged others‟ speaking ability based on external factors like opinions of the person, language politics, etc.

 New speakers sometimes appeared after „last‟ speaker died.

References

Dixon, R. M. W. 1972. The Dyirbal Language of North Queensland. Cambridge Studies in Linguistics, no. 9. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Evans, Nicholas. 2001. “The last speaker is dead – long live the last speakers!” In Paul Newman & Martha Ratliff (eds.) Linguistic Fieldwork. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lakoff, George. 1987. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Lyovin, Anatole. (1997). An introduction to the languages of the world. New York: Oxford University Press.