Fragments of Budderer’s waddy: a new Narungga grammar
Pacific Linguistics 612 Pacific Linguistics is a publisher specialising in grammars and linguistic descriptions, dictionaries and other materials on languages of the Pacific, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, East Timor, southeast and south Asia, and Australia. Pacific Linguistics, established in 1963 through an initial grant from the Hunter Douglas Fund, is associated with the School of Culture, History and Language in the College of Asia and the Pacific at The Australian National University. The authors and editors of Pacific Linguistics publications are drawn from a wide range of institutions around the world. Publications are refereed by scholars with relevant expertise, who are usually not members of the editorial board.
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Fragments of Budderer’s waddy: A new Narungga grammar
Christina Eira with the Narungga Aboriginal Progress Association
Pacific Linguistics College of Asia and the Pacific The Australian National University Published by Pacific Linguistics School of Culture, History and Language College of Asia and the Pacific The Australian National University Canberra ACT 0200 Australia
Copyright in this edition is vested with Pacific Linguistics
First published 2010
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Author: Eira, Christina.
Title: Fragments of Bbudderer's waddy : a new Narungga grammar / Christina Eira with the Narungga Aboriginal Progress Association.
ISBN: 9780858836112 (pbk.)
Subjects: Narangga language--Grammar.
Other Authors/ Narungga Aboriginal Progress Association. Contributors:
Dewey Number: 499.155
Typeset by Julie Manley Cover art by Melina Magdalena, 2007, Artistic representation of Narungga land with Narungga place names, © Narungga Aboriginal Progress Association. Used with permission. Printed and bound by Addcolour Digital Pty Ltd, Fyshwick, Canberra
In memory of Auntie Phoebe Wanganeen, 1925-2007 Nharangga warra wardlinu bammadja. The Narungga language is coming home.
Table of contents
List of tables ...... x Foreword by Lesley Wanganeen ...... xi Acknowledgements ...... xii List of abbreviations ...... xiv Map: Narungga country, Yorke Peninsula ...... xvii
1. Introduction...... 1 1.1 Language renewal – the bigger picture...... 2 1.2 Terminology ...... 3 1.3 Authenticity and change ...... 4 1.4 Processes and priorities ...... 6 1.5 The grammar of a language of renewal ...... 9 1.6 Land, people and language ...... 12 1.7 The language renewal project – processes for decision-making ...... 13 1.8 Current usage...... 17 1.9 Research sources...... 19 1.9.1 Early...... 20 1.9.2 Mission period ...... 20 1.9.3 Intermediate ...... 22 1.9.4 Recent ...... 22 1.9.5 Current ...... 23 1.9.6 Additional sources ...... 24
2. Phonology...... 26 2.1 Bases for analysis ...... 26 2.2 The phoneme inventory ...... 28 2.2.1 Vowels ...... 28 2.2.2 Consonants...... 30 2.3 Allophones...... 34 2.3.1 Voicing of stops...... 34 2.3.2 Retroflexes and ‘r-clusters’...... 35 2.4 Phonological processes...... 35
vii viii Table of contents
2.4.1 ‘d-clusters’ and prestopping ...... 35 2.4.2 ‘r-clusters’ and alveolar/retroflex alternation...... 37 2.4.3 ‘y-clusters’ and palatal/alveolar alternation ...... 37 2.4.4 Conclusions ...... 38 2.5 Stress and phonotactics ...... 39 2.5.1 Stress...... 39 2.5.2 Word and syllable structure...... 39 2.5.3 Syllable boundaries ...... 41 2.6 Morphophonemics...... 42 2.6.1 Compound reduction ...... 42 2.6.2 [%/w] alternation...... 44
3. Orthography...... 45 3.1 Introduction ...... 45 3.2 The basic system ...... 46 3.3 Voicing ...... 47 3.4 Double letters: nonstandardisation and underspecification...... 48 3.4.1 Semi-regular alternations...... 48 3.4.2 Under-determined sounds...... 51 3.5 Conclusions ...... 52
4. Lexicon and word classes ...... 53 4.1 Historical documentation ...... 53 4.1.1 Distribution of the lexicon...... 53 4.2 The expanding lexicon ...... 57 4.3 Filling in the personal pronoun paradigm ...... 57 4.4 Identifying adverbials and adjectivals...... 60 4.4.1 Adverbs...... 60 4.4.2 Adjectives...... 61
5. Morphology ...... 64 5.1 Historical documentation ...... 64 5.2 Noun morphology...... 64 5.2.1 Possessives ...... 64 5.2.2 Plural/mass ...... 66 5.2.3 Allative and purposive...... 67 5.2.4 The question of locatives...... 69 5.2.5 The suffix -na ...... 70 5.2.6 Another affix?...... 72
Table of contents ix
5.3 Bound pronouns...... 72 5.3.1 Narungga records...... 72 5.3.2 Comparative evidence ...... 73 5.4 Verb morphology...... 74 5.4.1 Tense, aspect, mood...... 74 5.4.2 Some possible additional affixes ...... 79 5.5 Word formation (compounds) ...... 80
6. Syntax...... 85 6.1 Language sources and language development...... 85 6.2 The basic structures ...... 86 6.2.1 SOV ...... 86 6.2.2 Phrase structure...... 89 6.3 Questions ...... 91 6.3.1 Wh- questions ...... 91 6.3.2 Yes/No questions...... 92 6.4 Imperatives ...... 93 6.5 Complex constructions and the limits of juxtaposition ...... 93 6.6 Adverbial phrases ...... 95
7. Discourse...... 97 7.1 Register...... 97 7.2 Conversational and other formulae...... 98 7.3 Discursive traditions...... 100
8. Conclusions: authenticity and change in the language revival process ...... 107 8.1 What is a language of revival? ...... 107 8.2 Narungga language reclamation: the story so far ...... 109
Appendix: Texts...... 111 A.1 Historical sentential examples ...... 111 A.2 Recent sentential examples...... 115
References ...... 117
x Table of contents
List of tables Table 2.1: Consonants in contemporary Narungga ...... 31 Table 2.2: Consonants in 19th century Narungga compared with contemporary consonants ...... 32 Table 2.3: Consonants occurring in word-initial position ...... 40 Table 2.4: [%]/[w] alternation...... 44 Table 3.1: Grapheme set: Vowels...... 46 Table 3.2: Grapheme set: Consonants ...... 47 Table 3.3: Nonstandardised treatment of alternations ...... 49 Table 3.4: Double letters used for underspecification purposes...... 51 Table 4.1: Additional word classes...... 56 Table 4.2: Kaurna personal pronouns (ABS and ERG) (A/WK) ...... 58 Table 4.3: Kaurna possessive pronouns (A/WK) ...... 58 Table 4.4: Personal pronouns...... 58 Table 4.5 Possessive pronouns ...... 58 Table 4.6: Roles of adjectival subclass...... 62 Table 4.7 Word class summary ...... 63 Table 5.1: Alienable and inalienable possessives in kin terms: free and bound (representative selection)...... 65 Table 5.2: The plural/mass marker -ri ...... 66 Table 5.3: The suffix -na...... 70 Table 5.4: A proposal for a bound pronoun paradigm...... 74 Table 5.5: -ni, -n and -dja as present tense and imperative markers in Narungga sources (representative selection)...... 75 Table 5.6: Comparative verb morphology...... 76 Table 5.7: -ni and -ru imperatives in Narungga sources...... 78 Table 5.8: Modifier+modified subtypes ...... 81 Table 5.9: Examples of new compounds...... 83
Foreword
For the Narungga people, the revival of their language as fully spoken language continues to be an exciting and rewarding challenge. With no fluent speakers available and no recordings of Narungga language as it was historically spoken, the journey together of all peoples past and present continues to demonstrate their courage and dedication in restoring the Narungga language as part of our today. To ensure support for the revival process, a conscious decision was made by the working group to take the language back to Narungga country and its people for the initial teaching trials. This decision proved to be invaluable, as it stimulated the cultural significance of language, and ownership of the language by its original peoples. Today, language programs are operating across schools and in adult settings, with the language now being spoken fluently in formal ceremonies, a process never before afforded and a clear testament to the success of the program and the revival of a sleeping language. The Narungga language journey has demonstrated, for all those people who have remained dedicated and committed to the process, what can be achieved simply by a desire to right a past injustice. Similarly, the journey has been one of healing and has spiritually refreshed us as a people, strengthened our identity and culturally enriched each individual. This project has therefore been a significant step in the survival of the Narungga language and culture, and provides for our future generations the opportunity to continue the work towards the complete reinstatement of our language to its rightful place – and with it, a greater understanding of identity and culture.
Lesley Wanganeen Project Director, April 2004
xi Acknowledgements
This book is one of the visible results of several years’ dedicated work by many people. It presents not only the linguistic analysis of the documented language, but also the decisions and practices of Narungga people who have been intensively developing, learning, teaching and using their language throughout that time. This book represents the community response to the documents brought together and made fully available through the language renewal project. It is based on policies and decisions carefully worked out by workshop participants, the feedback from adult students in pilot classes, and the implementation of language and language development policies by, first, Tania Wanganeen, then an increasing number of others under her leadership. The larger language renewal project is directed by the Narungga Aboriginal Progress Association (NAPA). The funding for the grammar project itself was provided by AIATSIS (G2002/6640). Other contributing funds were obtained from Tauondi Inc. (adult classes) and Yaitya Warra Wodli (initial major project grants). Below are listed the members of the Project Group, comprising regular participants in the workshops and the adult classes, together with special mention of a few people who have had particular roles in the project. The title of this book is used by permission of Kevin O’Loughlin, a teacher of the Dreaming of Budderer. Nha yunggu. (‘Thankyou all.’) Project Director: Lesley Wanganeen Language Worker and Class Teacher: Tania Wanganeen Consultant Elder: Phoebe Wanganeen Language Project Officer and Support Teacher: Christina Eira Reference Group Members: Phoebe Wanganeen, Michael Wanganeen, Lesley Wanganeen, Kevin O’Loughlin, Alice Rigney, Lester Irabinna Rigney, Rob Amery, Mary-Anne Gale, Chester Schultz. Additional Workshop Participants: Alice Artois-Moss, Lewis O’Brien, Betty Fisher, Lillian Milera, Denise Karpany, Peter Gibson, Kveta Smith, Wayne Milera, Eileen Wanganeen, Moyna Carter, Kym Wanganeen, Ian Turner, Fallon Wanganeen, Brendon Wilson, Keisha Milera. Adult Class Graduates: Lesley Wanganeen, Michael Wanganeen, Alice Rigney, Karen Brine, Shane Warrior, Monique Birkin, Winnie Sansbury, Matthew Sansbury, Paul Sansbury, Garnett Wanganeen.
xii Acknowledgements xiii
NAPA Board of Management (during the grammar project): Gordon Weetra, Lesley Wanganeen, Donald Brine, Shane Warrior, Tania Wanganeen. NAPA Manager: Michael Wanganeen. I would also like to express sincere thanks to the South Australian Museum, the Museum of Victoria and the Mortlock Library of Australiana for access to their archived manuscript collections, to Jane Simpson for her generous provision of research materials, and to John Giacon for his thorough and considerate critique of a late-stage draft. Finally, I am extremely and continuously grateful to all those who, including John Giacon, Paul Paton, Alex Blaszak, Laura ‘Wyrda’ Cook, Tonya Stebbins and Nick Nicholas, have been prepared to listen to my daily angst about language revival issues and help me refine positions, theories and processes as I go. Responsibility for any errors or oversights as well as any misperceptions of community members’ views remains with the author. Furthermore, the grammar, as a component of the renewed language, is a work in progress, so that aspects of the interpretation of and recommendations for the language as represented here will change over the next few years as it is taught, spoken and written in the community, and as a response to further linguistic research.
List of abbreviations
Narungga and cognate sources: A/WK: Amery, Rob (ed.). 1995. Warra Kaurna: A resource for Kaurna language programs. Adelaide: Inbarendi College. (First published 1997, revised 2003.) H/Nu: Hercus, Luise A., 1992. A Nukunu dictionary. Canberra: Luise Hercus with AIATSIS Khn: Kühn, J.W. & Fowler, W. 1886 [c.1880]. ‘Yorke’s Peninsula, South Australia’. In E.M.Curr (compiler) The Australian Race. 2, 67. 143-145 L&GE/J: Johnson, J. Howard, 1930-31. ‘The native tongue: A valuable Refers to all of: vocabulary’. The Pioneer: 26 December 1930, 9 January 1931, 16 January 1931 and manuscript version. Johnson, J. Howard, 1899-1905. Vocabulary, Lower Yorke Peninsula (Collected from George and Louisa Egginton circ. 1899-1905). Manuscript. Mitchell Library B1656 LE/T: Tindale, Norman, 1936. ‘Notes on the Natives of the southern portion of Refers to all of: Yorke Peninsula, South Australia’. Transactions & Proceedings of the Royal Society of SA 60, 55-69 and manuscript version. Tindale, Norman, 1935- . Notes on the Kaurna or Adelaide tribe and the Natives of Yorke Peninsula and the Middle North of South Australia, 1935- . Bound manuscript. N.B. Tindale Collection, South Australian Museum Archives AA338/1/35, together with Supplementary papers. Bound manuscript. Catalogued as Untitled papers. N.B. Tindale Collection, South Australian Museum Archives AA338/2/68 McE: McEntire, Edward, 1879. ‘List of words in the language of the Wallaroo tribe’. In G. Taplin (compiler), The folklore, manners, customs and languages of the South Australian Aborigines. Adelaide: Government Printer McE&McK: McEntee, John, & Pearl McKenzie, 1992. Adynya-math-nha (Adnyamathanha) English dictionary. Adelaide: McEntee & McKenzie
xiv Abbreviationss xv
N&R/B: Black, J.M. 1920. ‘Vocabularies of four South Australian languages— Adelaide, Narrunga, Kukata, and Narrinyeri—with special reference to their speech sounds’. Transactions of the Royal Society of SA 44. 76- 93. (First published in 1919.) NLK: Kirke, Brian, with Gladys Elphick, Phoebe Wanganeen, Doris Graham, Eileen Jovic et al, 1988. Narrunga language kit. Adelaide: ASTEC, SACAE Sch: Schürmann, C.W. 1844. A vocabulary of the Parnkalla language, spoken by the Natives inhabiting the western shores of Spencer’s Gulf, to which is prefixed a collection of grammatical rules, hitherto ascertained. Xerox facsimile. Adelaide: George Dehane S&H: Simpson, Jane, & Luise Hercus, 2004. ‘Thura-Yura as a subgroup’. In Claire Bowern and Harold Koch (eds), Australian Languages: Classification and the comparative method. Philadelphia/Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 179-206 (Appendices 197-226; 582-645) TA/S: Snell, Edward, 1988. The life and adventures of Edward Snell: The illustrated diary of an artist, engineer and adventurer in the Australian colonies 1849 to 1859. Edited and introduced by Tom Griffiths, with Alan Platt. North Ryde, N.S.W.: Angus & Robertson and The Library Council of Victoria T&S: Teichelmann, C.G., and C.W. Schürmann, 1962. Outlines of a grammar, vocabulary and phraseology of the Aboriginal language of South Australia. Facsimile edition. Adelaide: Tjintu Books. (First published in 1840.)
Languages Adn: Adnyamathanha Kau: Kaurna Nuk: Nukunu Morphemic glosses ABS absolutive ADJ adjectival AdvP adverbial phrase ALL allative DU dual ERG ergative HORT hortative INC inclusive IMP imperative INT interrogative INCH inchoative LOC locative NEG negative NOM nominal xvi Abbreviations
OIND indirect object OBJ object PL plural POSS possessive PP prepositional phrase PRES present PST past PURP purposive REDUP reduplication SG singular SUBJ subject TNS tense Miscellaneous FaFa father’s father FaMo father’s mother MoFa mother’s father MoMo mother’s mother xvii Map
Map: Narungga country, Yorke Peninsula Map drawn by Cartography (ANU) from art by Melina Magdalena, 2007, Artistic representation of Narungga land with Narungga place names, © Narungga Aboriginal Progress Association. Used with permission.
1 Introduction
‘The handle lies in pieces on the eastern side…and we see the stone which it formed there still.’ (Budderer’s Rock, as told by Kevin O’Loughlin)
The story of Budderer, a Dreaming trail which encompasses the entire length of Narungga land (Yorke Peninsula, South Australia), offers a powerful metaphor for language revival. In his retelling, Narungga Elder Kevin ‘Dookie’ O’Loughlin takes the learner on a journey through significant events in Budderer’s history and significant features of the land. This culminates in the hurling of Budderer’s waddy, which shatters into fragments across the peninsula and out to sea. Some of the fragments are still visible on the land. Some are under water. Some may be buried, or might have been moved from their original location. Some are lost forever, and can only be reconstructed in their location and form by careful assessment of the pieces that are still evident and creative re-imagining of what must have happened. Similarly, the Narungga language was also fragmented by devastating events in the past. At the time the revival project began in earnest, some fragments were still known in the community. Some were buried in archives from Adelaide to Herrnhut, Germany. Some had become fragmented still further by inadequate recording practices, the strong influence of English and other Aboriginal languages, or fading memories. And some are lost, probably forever. The Narungga language in the present has been pieced together by careful assessment of the fragments known in the community and found in various sources, comparisons with related language data, and creative re-imagining from the past into the future. The present work represents the renewed Narungga language in its initial phase in the first few years of the twenty-first century – a time when a group of speakers and teachers of Narungga was emerging, for the first time in perhaps 80–100 years. It contains the linguistic details of essentially the same information covered in the community resource grammar prepared from 2004–2006 (Wanganeen and Eira 2006). The linguists’ grammar also includes discussion of aspects of language awaiting further research, and incorporates some more recent data to reflect the continued development of the language by its speakers up to the end of 2007. Because of the re-emergent status of the language, it is important to record the grammar established at this early stage. This ensures the provision of a carefully established base for reference, from which the language will develop in the future, in accordance with whatever purposes and in whatever styles are required by its speakers. This grammar is not a reconstruction of ‘old Narungga’, nor an abstracted ideal of ‘pure Narungga’, but a record of the language established in the present for the future. This was
1 2 Chapter 1 achieved, following initial archival and analytical research, through open community workshops over two years, active language use by workshop participants and students of language classes held throughout 2003, and fine-tuning by close consultation between Tania Wanganeen (Senior Language Worker) and myself. In this volume, both the historical evidence and the details of each structure now in use are set out, together with the argumentation which has led to each decision made. It is fully anticipated that the language will continue to change and grow as domains of use and the number of speakers expand. The present work will stand as a record of the fragments of memory left by Narungga Elders of the past, and the initial rebuilding of those fragments by their descendants in the early part of the twenty-first century.
1.1 Language renewal – the bigger picture An increasing number of communities across Australia are becoming engaged in reviving their languages. Language revitalisation work at various levels is in progress in every State and Territory,1 the results of which are increasingly evident in public signage and speeches, naming practices, school curricula and tertiary programs, the appearance of books, CDs and other media about and/or using the languages, and various papers on the subject.2 It is no accident that this surge of effort began to emerge in the years following the 1967 Referendum, which signalled significant support for the recognition of Aboriginal people as members of the Commonwealth of Australia, and stands as a symbol for an emerging consciousness of their political rights. Since then we have seen the steady progression of key milestones such as the Aboriginal Heritage and Native Title Acts (1988 and 1993 respectively), together with procedures and debates arising from these. We have seen the rise and fall of bilingual education, and in the early years of the twenty-first century, a widespread defunding and dismantling of Aboriginal-run organisations. At the time of writing, we are dealing simultaneously with the continuing issues raised by the Northern Territory Intervention and the wide-ranging effects of the National Apology. As part and parcel of this sociopolitical environment, reclaiming language is inseparable from a much bigger set of goals centering on reclaiming cultural strength. Reclaiming language is a reclamation not only of language knowledge and skills, together with the cultural knowledge embedded in language, but also of respect for that knowledge, as the knowledge of individuals, communities and their Elders. It is reclaiming the right to speak on one’s own terms, and be listened to, reclaiming authority over community business, reclaiming identity. It is, as implicit in the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights, an act of decolonisation: Considering that invasion, colonisation, occupation and other instances of political, economic or social subordination often involve the direct imposition of a foreign language or, at the very least, distort perceptions of the value of languages and give rise to hierarchical linguistic attitudes which undermine the language loyalty of speakers; and considering that the languages of some peoples which have attained sovereignty are consequently immersed in a process of language substitution as a result of a policy which favours the
1 See McKay (1996), McRae (1995) for some additional case studies, or Simpson et al (2008) for a detailed study focussing on South Australia. 2 See Mühlhäusler et al (2004) for a suggested listing of measurable outcomes of language revival. Introduction 3
language of former colonial or imperial powers… (Preliminaries, Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights, Barcelona 1996)3 For these reasons, language renewal is far more than a linguistic exercise. It is fundamentally a community process. No amount of skill and care in archival research and comparative analysis can bring about language renewal. Instead, the renewed language develops within its community, drawing on the human, documented and structural resources available. There will be concrete outcomes in its development, such as publications and teaching programs, but these are not the material of language renewal so much as windows into the re-emerging life of the language. This perspective on language reclamation has very significant ramifications for practices of authority and authorisation in language revival work, as it means that, if it is to be successful, it is not only knowledge of language but, crucially, authority in language which has to be returned to the community: The languages of Australia have been stolen, in the sense that the right and capacity to maintain the knowledge was removed from the communities. The maintenance of this knowledge now is largely restricted to documentation in books, recordings and manuscripts in mainstream institutions. Access to these institutions remains most readily available to academics and to authorities recognised as such within this system. Moreover, it is academic evaluation and analysis of the data which is generally accepted as valid. The task of the linguist, then, is to act as a channel for ensuring that this stolen knowledge and authority flows back to the communities. If we continue to maintain ourselves as the authorities, the keepers of knowledge, then we haven’t ‘returned’ anything. (Eira 2007:84) This notion of what it means to ‘return’ language acts as a fundamental guiding principle that informs the process, theory and methodology of the Narungga language renewal project. I discuss what it means for the grammar of a renewed language in §1.5.
1.2 Terminology Terms including language renewal, revival, revitalisation and reclamation are used variously in this field, but are beginning to settle into established meanings as described in the Australian Indigenous Languages Framework (SSABSA 1996). In this system, language revival is a cover term referring to various forms and approaches to the re- emergence of a language in its community. Language revitalisation implies that the language is still spoken by a number of Elders, so can be learned from them at least in part. Language renewal, however, covers situations in which only words and perhaps some phrases or sentences are known by Elders. Language reclamation refers to a primary reliance on archival sources, as little knowledge remains active within the community. Certainly, within these definitions, the last term is the one appropriate to the Narungga situation. Although some Elders do know some words, the basis for the language is very heavily reliant on the analysis of historical sources. In this book, however, I have tended to use the term language renewal for the most part, as the focus of the work is unquestionably the process of renewing, redeveloping and recreating the language. The Project team has used the term renewal as an overt marker and reminder of the kind of
3 Available at http://www.linguistic-declaration.org/decl-gb.htm. 4 Chapter 1 work and approach needed in the language planning process. I will continue this usage for the present purposes, and hope that this does not give rise to confusion. I will also use the term reclamation when referring to the act of taking back or reclaiming aspects of language or culture, and revival as a general cover term, as above. Throughout this book, I use the terms historical language and contemporary language contrastively. It should be understood that what I mean by the former is not a historical reconstruction through rigorous application of comparative methods, but a more localised assessment of the language in the mid- to late nineteenth century, primarily through extant records (see §1.7). These terms have been used throughout the Project to clarify choices made for the contemporary (that is, renewed) language to accept and/or select features of pronunciation, lexicon et cetera which for one reason or another differ from the indications of the historical record.
1.3 Authenticity and change For a language in process of renewal, issues of change are more in focus even than for other living languages. In the first place, community members are simultaneously learning their language and taking control of its development – both consciously and spontaneously. This is quite different from a neatly ideal scenario in which language learning progresses on the basis of a comprehensive set of lexical, phonological and grammatical understandings, established through careful analysis and synthesis of sources which have then been thoroughly discussed and authorised by the appropriate community representatives. Instead, the analysis, growth in understanding of linguistic and community bases for interpretation, language development, language learning and use, all move forward in interwoven patterns, depending on community priorities, people involved, available time and funding, and other factors. This inevitably means that both linguists and communities have to be prepared to accommodate a degree of ongoing change in the language as it develops, to allow it to incorporate new insights, priorities and understandings at appropriate stages. Giacon (2003 and 2008), for example, explicates detailed areas of further grammatical analysis for Gamilaraay and Yuwaalaraay which are yet to be fully incorporated in language revival activities, while the present volume will identify a number of points where there is potential for further development of Narungga on the basis of comparative analysis. A recurrent topic of debate in regard to change in revival languages is modernisation. While on the one hand, communities are concerned to ensure that the ancientness of their language is restored, together with the cultural knowledge and ways of imaging the world that this entails, on the other hand, many are also committed to a view of their language as living and contemporary, and hence are both comfortable with and motivated about expanding that language’s semantic domains. Amery (2001), Black (1993) and others argue strongly for the validity of lexical elaboration (see also Kaurna terms and phrases for domains such as football in Amery et al forthcoming), while Walsh (2005) notes the differences in opinion as to whether such developments reflect language loss or language vitality. One concern which emerged during a Narungga workshop was to ensure that new words were developed along semantic, cultural and structural principles evidenced in historical records. Other groups have discussed the culturally validated practice of borrowing words from a neighbouring language – for example, for purposes such as euphemism, or to avoid uttering words which are too similar to the name of a recently deceased person. Borrowing from English and adapting the loan to the phonology of the Introduction 5 receiving language, is a third historically validated option, bringing words such as dhiibi ‘sheep’ (Johnson 1899-1905) and dhulya, probably from ‘soldier’ (R. Amery, personal communication), now ‘police officer’ (Wanganeen 1986), into Narungga. Dorian (1994) makes the difficult point that new words derived from the dominant language may hold significantly greater potential for retention in the speaker/learner community, unless words developed from within the language’s own resources are very thoroughly publicised and widely taught. The Narungga dictionary (NAPA 2006) leaves the broader question of acceptability of neologisms to individuals to decide, by including a separate section labelled ‘New words’ – as does the Gamilaraay Yuwaalaraay Yuwaalayaay dictionary (Ash et al 2003). Not only are some of the words of revival languages new, but also idiomatic phrases such as greetings (Walsh 2005, Giacon 2008). Again, this is entirely within normal expectations for a living, contemporary language. Twenty-first century English speakers are not usually interested in wishing their friends ‘God be with you’ as they depart. Here, the phrase has undergone semantic bleaching, and acquired a connotation of a more extended or permanent leave-taking, as indicated by common comparisons with European equivalents such as au revoir. It is not easy to argue for any great difference between this shift in idiomatic meaning and the choice of twenty-first century speakers of renewed languages to greet people with a conventionalised question about their health. Quite apart from the above issues, it is clear that language renewal also involves considerable change at less conscious levels of language – particularly phonology and syntax. That this may well characterise revival languages in general is suggested by Zuckermann’s studies of Israeli Hebrew (Zuckermann 2006 and elsewhere), in which he makes the case for analysing Israeli Hebrew as a hybrid language, comprised of conscious elements such as the lexicon mostly from Hebrew, and subconscious elements such as phonology and intonation mostly from Yiddish (the mother tongue of most of the founder generation). If this is the case for what is surely the most established revival language in the world, it would seem inevitable in languages which are used within an ongoing daily environment of English in almost every domain. It would seem strange to claim, however, that Israeli Hebrew is not a successfully revived language. What we may have in revival languages, then, is an emergent type of language whose pathways of development are different from those of continuously spoken languages, with different relationships between contemporary and heritage language than our current standard notions of a living language can adequately accommodate. This view is supported also in Walsh (2005:304), who points out that the question of survival of Aboriginal languages is in part definitional, ‘hing[ing] crucially on intended outcomes’.4 Yet another level at which current notions of language change have difficulty accommodating revival languages is the intensity of language planning involved. This is partly connected with the impoverishment of historical records (see §1.4), but also due to validation of certain kinds and sources of language change since these were written. Milroy (2003) discusses the tendency in language change theory to validate only change which is triggered internally, removing the language user from the discourse. While Milroy does not discuss overt and formally agreed language change, he is certainly talking about change which occurs as a result of social factors, such as the emergence of phonological identity markers. It is only a short step from here to see identity markers and
4 See also a useful discussion in Amery (2000:25-27) of the distinction between ‘natural’ and ‘artificial’ languages in relation to Kaurna. 6 Chapter 1 other objects of language development which are intentionally and overtly selected as also of interest within language change theory. In this light, it will be of interest in future studies of language renewal to consider established frameworks of language change such as Aikhenvald’s (2007) sixteen categories of conditions for change, or Curnow’s (2001) exploration of the kinds of elements that can be borrowed between languages. This will allow investigation of the degree to which languages of renewal can be better understood by referral to these frameworks, and conversely, what these languages have to contribute to a fuller representation of language change. For language renewal, not only is rapid and extensive change a distinct possibility, but also there is a need to rely on records whose limitations are manifest, and the need to be confident of authenticity claims a high priority within communities as much as amongst linguists. Here again, the question is largely definitional, as what is salient to the discussions is often different for different parties. Eira and Stebbins (2008) theorise authenticity as a requirement for continuity, assessed by different validating narratives depending on the criteria for what constitutes continuity for a given community (including the linguistics community). A given feature of language can be validated by reference to the heritage of a given line of speakers, family or teachers, recognition of the rights of particular people to authority in language, markers of genetic descent or typological matching, reflection of identity or origins, or other criteria. Linguists of different schools will respond to different pieces of evidence to support their own authenticating narratives, as will communities. Once it is understood that both linguists and language communities refer to these internal systems of validation, each equally justifiable on their own terms, it becomes easier to conceptualise a system which can accommodate and narrate multiple authenticities: For the linguist, this will mean a preparedness to recognise their own as well as community representatives' active lineages of authenticity, in order to be able to use them consciously, as tools, rather than be driven by them ... Based on the assumption that all lineages of authenticity are equally valid in their own right, the linguist could re-view their role as a contributor of information about their own systems of authentication, without acting on a perceived need to gain community representatives’ support for these systems. This could allow for careful consideration (and, sometimes, incorporation) of the contribution offered by linguistics on a given issue, while avoiding the creation of an environment in which it appears necessary to view only the linguist as the gatekeeper of knowledge (Eira and Stebbins 2008:26). The goal of incorporating both community and linguistics validation systems in this way will be evident throughout this book, with the ultimate goal of a language renewed in multiple and authentic ways, whose decisions and spontaneous developments can be explained within a framework of descriptive linguistics. This framework is also renewed, in light of the new understandings to be gained by expanding our knowledge base to include revival languages.
1.4 Processes and priorities While initial work has been done to formalise the overarching processes of language revival (Hinton 2001 for example), there is little documentation as yet of the considerable Introduction 7 process involved in the development of a grammar of such a language. Amery (2000) provides a comprehensive account of the reclamation of Kaurna, including aspects of the grammar, with useful theoretical discussion throughout. The present volume will provide a second account, focused on the development of the grammar and phonology itself. For a renewal language, this process involves on the one hand intensive study of sources including historical documentation, and on the other hand an outward-looking perspective that prioritises useability of the language for the present-day community. Analysing historical sources in the context of languages of renewal is a different task from that undertaken by the historical linguist (Giacon 2003), as the goal goes beyond recreating as accurately as possible a form of a language no longer used, to preparing a foundation for actual use of the language, despite the incompleteness, inaccuracies and discrepancies with which nineteenth century sources are fraught.5 This requires informed decision-making about not only likely forms, but forms that will be used; not only attested members of a paradigm and those which can readily be derived, but a complete paradigm for use; not only affixes which can be analysed, but also putative ones, and additional ones which are perceived necessary. This is why analysis for a language of renewal cannot be done without a theoretical base which is informed not only by linguistics but also by the community concerned. It is easy for linguists to assume that we have the knowledge required to analyse the records of a language, so that this analysis can then be turned into materials for teaching, learning, and language planning and development. What this assumption omits is that all analysis is (intentionally or otherwise) based on a theoretical position. As a linguist working with a community to facilitate reclamation of their language, I do not know what is most important to preserve from an earlier form of the language. Nor do I know what constitutes acceptable change in the pathways the language has taken in ensuing years. I do not know why the language in the present must show respect to speaker x, or why it should be differentiated from language y. I do not know what causes resistance to or preference for particular forms, sources, or orthographic choices. The question for linguists working in language revival, then, is not only whether the community has sufficient information with which to make language decisions, but also whether we have sufficient information ourselves. Only the community can contribute such components of a theoretical and methodological basis, thus making language renewal work necessarily a genuinely collaborative enterprise. Individual communities will make their own decisions about which aspects of the language are more urgent to reclaim. This may or may not be aligned with the linguist’s hierarchy of significance (Thieberger 2002), and may even at times focus on aspects of the language salient to contemporary speakers but not necessarily evident in the historical sources. Linguists will tend to be concerned about either aspects of the language which characterise its typological makeup and/or genetic inheritance, or those which are rare in described world languages, hence preserving the breadth of knowledge of the possibilities of language. In principle, I would say that this focus is also consistent with community goals, as these are often expressed in terms of being able to use language to find and express difference (from English), and to reclaim the sense of identity which comes in part from older cultural ways of knowing. However, because of (a) the practicalities of reclaiming, learning and using language all at the same time, and (b) pathways for
5 See Austin and Crowley (1995) for an accessible description of the methods for analysing phonology from such sources, or Amery (2000:115-120) for a walked-through example. Further walked-through examples at various linguistic levels can be found throughout this book, such as §4.3 (gaps in the pronoun paradigm) or §5.4.1 (discrepancies in verb morphology). 8 Chapter 1 identifying what is important about the language which differ from those of linguistics, as noted above, the community linguist has to be prepared to accept bases for decision- making other than that provided through our approaches to analysing old documents. It is very common, for example, for communities to enter into language renewal by focussing on relexification, as the obvious, clearest route to accessing conceptual knowledge and a rapid sense of reclamation of the language is through the words. A well-known early approach used for Quileute is based on embracing this principle, actively prioritising speaker/learner confidence and achievement over linguistic purity (Powell 1973 – see also Sandefur 1983 for a discussion of this approach in an Australian context). In the present work, I will discuss points of decision-making where aspects of a language which a linguist might consider crucial to full understanding are put aside, at least for the time being (for example, bound pronouns, see §5.3), while others not necessarily characteristic of the historical language are prioritised (for example, ‘r-clusters’, see §2.3.2) because of group identity marking or other reasons. Having said this, there are also aspects of the language prioritised by both community and linguistics criteria, and so brought back into community linguistic practices despite difficulty (for example, inalienable possession, see §5.2.1). Entailed in the selection of elements to prioritise is the question of the roles of the language as reclaimed (as well as the purpose of a grammar such as this one, to be discussed under §1.5). The many possible answers to this are evolving along with the languages themselves, and in some ways it is too soon to say what the languages will ultimately be ‘for’. We have not been here before. Amery (2000) writes that the Kaurna language revival … is pushing the boundaries of what is possible, feasible and acceptable in relation to the revival of languages no longer spoken. Perhaps the ‘impossible dream’ could even become reality. (Amery 2000:24) Like Amery, I have no wish to make definitive statements about what is and is not possible for a new and therefore unknown language situation. In fact quite the reverse – it is the renewal of languages deemed to be ‘dead’ that will lead us to new understandings in this new territory. A few early remarks are nonetheless in order. We do know already that the renewed languages have a very strong symbolic function. This is exemplified by the emphasis on the public speech as an early goal of language reclamation. That few people in the audience of speeches enacting welcome to country and/or acknowledgement of land can understand what is being said, in a literal sense, does not detract in any way from the importance of saying it in language. In my view, what is of primary significance in this speech act is the deeply ceremonial function of the language, connecting present to ancient, reinstating the primacy of that land as the base for everything that happens on it, and creating a framework of orientation, with Aboriginal people and respect for who we (all) are and where we are firmly in view. This is far from tokenistic. A second crucial function of renewed languages is as part of the reclamation of identity, strengthening self-esteem and group esteem, particularly (though certainly not exclusively) for children and young people. For this purpose, the priority is on formulaic language such as greetings, songs in language (including songs translated from English), acquisition of a small number of lexical fields, and initial indications of culture-specific knowledge within this, such as the meaning of kin terms. The main point here is to have something which belongs to you and in turn affirms your belonging. Walsh (2005) cites a number of Indigenous people of both Australia and North America explaining why even a very small Introduction 9 amount of language knowledge is of critical importance. For example (referring to some parts of Australia): Particularly for places of special significance it is felt that access to such a place can be gained only when there is someone who can speak to the spirits that inhabit that place. And the ‘place’ will understand only the language of the land-owning group in whose territory that place resides ... This is a strong incentive to retain enough of the language belonging to a place to gain access to that place. (Walsh 2005:307) Neither relexification nor knowledge of certain lexical fields has much to do with developing a grammar. In addition, however, the stated goal of many if not most is to restore their language to the point where people can communicate without the use of English. For such a goal to be even thinkable, issues of change have to be addressed. Fettes summarises this in a North American context: ...reweaving of the language braid will not produce the old language ... If it is successful, a new language will arise, one with deep roots in its traditional heritage but equally reliant on the urge of its speakers to use the language for everyday purposes and in everyday contexts far removed from the traditional ones. (Fettes 1997:312, cited in Amery 2000:24) It is in this context that the relevance of a grammar of language renewal arises. On the one hand, the description of the language must document what is happening, while on the other hand, its development must participate in facilitating the communicative function required of the language. For example, if the renewed language differs from the heritage language in a reduction or elimination of an ergative system, then for communicative purposes, the grammar developed must establish something in its place, such as a fixed word order principle. If the available and acceptable sources for the language provide no second person pronouns, then the developing grammar must establish what those pronouns will be – whether they are borrowed from surrounding languages, a pidgin or English, or developed from language-internal resources, or reconstructed by comparison with cognates. In this way, the language is gradually made ready for whatever communicative functions its community may require as they extend the roles and domains of their language. The decisions made, the linguistic and community bases for these decisions, and the language use that emerges, together constitute the material for the grammatical description.
1.5 The grammar of a language of renewal A grammar of a renewed language is an account of the linguistic layers of a movement which encompasses far more in its processes and effects. It necessarily reflects both community and linguistic analyses underlying its development. As has been indicated already, the grammar of a renewed language belongs to a new genre only beginning to be understood. Rather than focussing on a synchronic description of hard language data, such a grammar must balance and interweave several layers of language simultaneously – (i) the reconstructive analysis of the historical language, preserved to varying degrees in archival sources, (ii) successive waves of change in the language since colonisation, in response to restrictions on language use, the influence of English and other Aboriginal languages, and spontaneous adaptation to the communicative 10 Chapter 1 requirements of the imposed environment, and (iii) the renewed language in the present day, which responds to this documentary history through the memories and priorities of community representatives, collaborative decision-making, and the outworking of a language-in-process as speaker confidence and numbers expand, together with domains and frequency of use. Linguistic details such as allomorphic variation, criteria for determining word order, or the relations between phonology and orthographic representation, reflect the chronological layers of the language, the tensions between goals, and the focus on language planning. The task for the linguist is to provide an accurate description of the language in use, analysis of the historical sources and the light shed on these through cognate records and analyses, argumentation for current language planning directions that shows the relationship of the contemporary language to its various forms over time, and an explanation of the contemporary processes through which the language is being brought back into the present. Alongside community language revival efforts, teaching and/or community reference grammars are now emerging which refer to and incorporate contemporary community usage and decisions. For example, Amery et al (forthcoming) discusses possibilities for talking about time in terms of both historical sources and present-day requirements, with contemporary examples including tindo kuma '1:00' or kumirka mila munara tindo marnkutye ‘A quarter to three’, literally ‘15 before 3 o’clock’ (using the workshop- developed term kumirka mila ‘fifteen’). The baseline use of tindo ‘day, sun’, is drawn from nineteenth-century records, which show tindourlo ‘tomorrow’ (day-TEMPORAL). (See also Wanganeen and Eira 2006.) The newness of this type of linguistic description is in some ways parallel to descriptions of other ‘new’ types of Aboriginal language, such as Gurindji Kriol (McConvell and Meakins 2005), Light Warlpiri (O’Shannessy 2005) or Areyonga Teenage Pitjantjatjara (Langlois 2004, 2006). O’Shannessy demonstrates the status of Light Warlpiri as a new language (as distinct from, for instance, a pidgin) by arguing that the elements of input langages Warlpiri, Kriol and English are systematically combined, that the language is an in-group language rather than a vehicle for intergroup communication, that it differs from the code-mixing of older Warlpiri speakers, and ‘has conventionalised into a new language, which is now learned by children as one of their two first languages’ (O’Shannessy 2005:32). She describes at length features characterising and distinguishing this new language, particularly the new auxiliary system developed by younger generation speakers and the distribution of ergative marking, discussing potential sources and pathways of emergence for each. The principle of writing up a grammar of a revival language as it is currently used is not ‘only’ sociopolitical, but also theoretical and methodological. In Eira (2007), I have outlined how revisiting some of the most fundamental principles of linguistics in the light of language revival requires linguists to see community usage and views as the authoritative window into language description in this arena. These principles can be summarised as: Descriptivism – If one of the key roles of linguistics is to provide an accurate description of current language phenomena, then this entails the validity and worth of the contemporary language as an object of study in its own right: This directly challenges our assumed definition of language revival. We know, it appears to us, what the language should be. With the best of intentions, we want to direct the community towards our view of their language. But their Introduction 11
language, according to linguistic theory itself, is what they are using. (Eira 2007:84)
Objectivity – While there are arguments that can be made for and against this principle, one useful point that it raises is that prior knowledge can unintentionally function as a block to understanding new knowledge. In the present context, a linguist’s knowledge of earlier forms of the language can stand in the way of our understanding of the new knowledge that languages of revival embody. Language in context – For the descriptive linguist it is axiomatic that the rich complexity of language is accessible only through a study of language in its contexts. The effects of colonisation being a critical characterising context of languages in Australia, this means that an understanding of the complexity of renewed languages must include the ways in which they are recreated, the various influences seen over the periods of their reduced use and their reclamation, the factors consciously included in decision-making as well as unconsciously implemented, et cetera. One of the goals of writing a grammar of a renewed language is to further establish the parameters for analysing and describing this relatively new type of language, and thereby contribute to a clearer understanding of what language revival work entails. A grammar of a language of renewal is important to linguists as it deepens our understanding of the nature of language in general. It gives us on-the-ground material for considering questions about authenticity, change and continuity, the balance between organic development and language planning, the identity and role of the speech community and outgroup linguists. The lessons learned from long-established languages may need revisiting here; the lessons learned from other language situations responding to intense contact may have more to offer (Goodfellow and Alfred 2002). A theory of language which is robust enough to offer a coherent account of all the forms and processes of language of which the human race is demonstrably capable would be a great achievement for our discipline as a whole. It would also enable us to work more effectively in the variety of situations our profession offers us. A grammar of a language of renewal is also important to communities, as for many, like the Narungga, this work has to start almost from scratch, with little active knowledge in the community and English as the primary language for several generations. The methods and pathways are also little known – possibly no-one in the community has been involved in such an endeavour before, and the field within linguistics is also very restricted in terms of resources, experienced people, and established understandings within the discipline. Records of the linguistic side of language revival projects will be important for communities as an example of what is possible, what considerations might be involved, and what language development into the future might look like. The present work describes the emerging renewed Narungga language in its current landmark phase of initial analysis, planning, teaching and use, in terms of the historical, linguistic and sociolinguistic streams which are forming it. It also outlines the questions remaining and possibilities available but as yet not fully explored within the data collected. Finally, it documents the informed creativity of contemporary speakers in moving beyond what was specifically collected in times past, in ways that also honour the uniqueness of their language and the gift of their ancestors received through the historical records. This book is offered in the hope that it will contribute to a greater coherence of theory and practice, of ideas about language and on-the-ground practice of language, and of the goals of linguists and communities. 12 Chapter 1
1.6 Land, people and language Narungga is the traditional language of the Yorke Peninsula, South Australia. It is a member of the Thura-Yura family, of the Miru group, along with Kaurna, Nukunu, Ngadjuri and possibly Permangk. More distant members of the family include Nhawu, Barngarla, Adnyamathanha and Kuyani. Linguistic evidence such as lenition patterns (S&H, see also Howitt 1996) suggests that at least Kaurna and Narungga, and possibly also Nukunu, separated from the northern members before eventually splitting off into the three language groups known today.6 Amery (2000) provides a brief introduction to this language family, while a detailed discussion of Proto Thura-Yura and reflexes in these languages can be found in S&H. Contact with various overseas visitors and immigrants began early in Narungga lands, with the intermittent arrival of sealers and whalers on the south coast from the early 1800s. However, the earliest extant evidence of one of these Europeans actually recording Narungga language was not until after the beginning of colonisation of the area in the 1830s – Snell’s diary, written 1849-59. Even at this early stage, there is at least one word which suggests adaptation of the language to introduced concepts: ‘Tanne Arrito’, whose language is represented in this diary, uses a verb bundu ‘to blow’ in reference to ‘smoking’. There are no further records of the language available until the 1860s, when life on Yorke Peninsula had been irretrievably altered, leading to the establishment of the Moravian mission in 1868. This event was motivated by, on the one hand, concern for the protection of Aboriginal women and children in particular from the unrestrained aggression of some colonists, and on the other hand, desire for removal of the ‘problem’ of displaced and impoverished Narungga people, caused by a sequence of sealing and whaling, widespread agriculture, then mining, and the associated development of townships and European wealth (see Anon. 1867, Anon. 1960, Heinrich 1972, Mattingley et al 1992). Shifts in the language ecology triggered by the mission period and the forced relocation of people, first from around Narungga territory, then later between the various missions around the State, increased the influence on Narungga of not only neighbouring languages, but also more distantly related languages, such as Kukatha and Pitjantjatjara. In addition, wordlists made during this period record many new words and semantic extensions of existing words, such as Khn
6 Details of Ngadjuri are less clear at this stage, and will probably remain so at least until the release of the Berndt data, scheduled for 2024. 7 Transcriptions in Narungga sources will be indicated by the use of angle brackets, and the popular orthography by italics. Similarly, the transcriptions of primary sources in other languages will be indicated by angle brackets, and a standardised orthography, community spelling or, in the absence of these, a conventional spelling as per a major dictionary, by italics. Introduction 13
Little is known directly about the level of language use through the twentieth century, but indications are that it was very low. Sarah Newchurch in 1919 was able to record several sets of paradigmatic sentences with Black, though there is evidence in this record of changes in her language due to loss of memory and the influence of other Aboriginal languages as well as English. After this, there is little recorded evidence of the continued use of the language. In 1936, Louisa Eglinton revised an earlier wordlist with Tindale (originally recorded in 1898 with Johnson and Grandmother Louisa’s white husband, George Eglinton). This revision appears to have been largely with the goal of clarifying the pronunciation of the words from Johnson’s pseudo-English spelling. Few additions were made to Grandmother Louisa’s list at this later date, and it seems that she lived largely in isolation from her heritage community for most of her life due to exemption laws. It was not until the second half of the century that the language was recorded onto tape. Starting in the 1960s, various Elders including Gladys Elphick and Cliff Edwards were recorded by Catherine Ellis and others. The focus in these tapes is on collaborative remembering of individual words, cultural meanings associated – and talk of how the language had been lost. In a project based at Point Pearce in the 1980s, Elders including Gladys Elphick, Auntie Phoebe Wanganeen, Auntie Doris Graham and Auntie Eileen Jovic documented their combined memories of around 200 words, along with associated cultural knowledge. From this program a teaching resource kit was developed (Kirke et al 1988) which includes both this wordlist and some from historical sources, releasing around 700 words for community access. Comments by Narungga people and anecdotal evidence suggest that language came back into focus from this point, especially in the school at Point Pearce, but was largely restricted to the 200 words remembered by the Elders, and English sentential contexts. Point Pearce teachers Elizabeth Newchurch and Edmond O’Loughlin were the primary coordinators of this first reclamation program, with the assistance of funding from the Yaitya Warra Wodli language centre. A musicocultural project centred around the culturally important gurdi (quandong) was also developed in this period by many of the same Elders, with Chester Schultz, utilising fragments of a song included in the Eglinton/Tindale records.
1.7 The language renewal project – processes for decision-making It is from this point that the intensive language renewal project was commenced in 2000, under the auspices of the Narungga Aboriginal Progress Association (NAPA). Directed by a Reference Group of senior Narungga community members and a few selected non-Aboriginal people, I was contracted to undertake a thorough-going collection and analysis of all sources for both lexical and grammatical information, together with comparative analysis, and identification of remaining gaps and questions. Information about all this was passed back to the community in a series of plain-language documents. Once this phase was complete, a broad summary of findings, gaps in the paradigms and language planning questions were brought to a series of open workshops of Narungga people, over a period of two years. One of the most significant achievements of the workshop phase was to shift the concept of language usage from isolated words to complete grammatical sentences, moving rapidly to stories, speeches, songs and conversations (see Gale and Mickan 2008 14 Chapter 1 for discussion of a similar pathway for Ngarrindjeri). The primary tasks of the workshops focused on making decisions for the following, details of which can be found in the relevant sections throughout the book: articulations for teaching and reclamation, orthographic development, principles for deciding on apparently competing forms (such as preferential reliance on older sources and degree of acceptance of cognate evidence), regularising and extending the use of affixes recorded for Narungga (see §5.2.3 for example), use or otherwise of additional affixes recorded for related languages (see §5.2.4 for example), filling the gaps in the pronoun paradigms (see §4.3), fixed word order (§6.2.1), priorities for teaching/learning purposes in regard to unfamiliar grammar and phonology (such as bound pronouns – see §5.3), and inconclusive analyses (such as verb classes – see §5.4.1), whether and how to create new words (§5.5), and lexicographic policy including how to represent questions of inconclusive analysis, identification of Narungga as opposed to related or contact language loans and degree of common lexicon between languages, and the relative merits of foregrounding the English-language section or the Narungga-English section (NAPA 2006). During that period, the employment of Tania Wanganeen as language worker made possible a much more detailed consultation and decision-making process, combined with on-the-job training. These more micro-level decisions were then fed back into community understandings through the teaching program and the development of teaching and reference resources. This apprenticeship-style model was maintained over the next few years in a wedge framework (language worker increasing in tasks and responsibility while the linguist reduced) until finally Tania was not only carrying the full burden of linguistic analysis and resource development, but also training other language workers, on the same model. Much later in the piece, an intensive course in Linguistics for language renewal (Narungga) was undertaken by a number of Narungga people (see §1.8). This filled in much of the background to the analyses and proposals presented during the workshop phase. At the time of the workshops, then, decision-making relied on progressive understanding of linguistic and community issues discussed in the workshops – that is, an exchange of knowledge to equip the community to make linguistic decisions, and myself to understand not only the letter but the spirit of their preferences, to be able to translate it into the linguistic terms needed to inform my analysis and theoretical positioning. In this way, policies were developed in the workshops, leaving their implementation to me (and later Tania) – for example, by revisiting analysis of forms according to priorities of source and language differentiation agreed on in the workshop. The revised results were then presented at later workshops so that people could see what their decisions ‘looked like’, gain a deeper understanding of the language development process that was involved, teach Introduction 15 me further about the basis for their choices, and revisit policy decisions or my understanding of them if necessary. All decisions made for the renewed language during this foundation period were based on general principles of procedure established in workshops:
The linguistic structures attested in Narungga sources constitute the primary basis of analysis. This exemplifies a level of caution common to language revival communities in Australia, who see this as a means of being confident that the language reclaimed is ‘really theirs’. There are a number of factors here. In part, it seems to me, it is triggered by conditions of extreme loss to communities of both knowledge and authority in their languages and cultures, which leaves them uncertain about how to trust or assess the identity and veracity of information in a particular document or analysis. Another factor is the political environment, in which procedures such as Native Title require evidence of distinct and continuous lines of heritage, promoting as a side effect a tendency towards purism that is unlikely to have characterised the pre-colonisation language ecology. Thirdly, particularly for languages whose records date largely from the mission period onwards, there is considerable concern about an excessive level of language mixing due to forced close contact with people from various Countries. A generally acceptable strategy to deal with serious issues such as the above, is to focus primarily or at least initially on historical sources which are labelled as from the target language (including recognised alternative names), a speaker known to have the appropriate language group identity, and/or a location accepted as within the group boundaries (as well as, of course, current community knowledge).8
In relation to this, comparative analysis of related languages is utilised within a limited role: to clarify and test analysis, and to support the coherent completion of paradigms only partially recorded. Only very occasionally did the group consider expanding the grammatical resources of Narungga by exploring those of related languages – and only then when it was also possible to argue for any proposed inclusions on the basis of Narungga sources (see §5.2.4 and §5.4.1). A particular concern of the Narungga group in this regard was to ensure differentiation of their language from that of Kaurna. Kaurna is the most closely related language to Narungga, sometimes even designated as the same language,9 despite significant differences in lexicon, form of reflexes, and morphology (see §5.4.1 for example). Several members of the working groups for both languages have heritage tying them to both languages. The Kaurna language revival started significantly earlier than the focussed Narungga work (see Amery 2000), and hence had already established practices, policies and language decisions which can tend to function as a default norm. For all the above reasons, the Narungga Project group made conscious decisions at a number of points
8 Exclusions will of course occur. For example, in studying one source labelled as Narungga, it became clear that the language was nonetheless Ngadjuri (Berndt 1940). 9 ‘Owing to the similarity of the dialects of the Yorke Peninsula and Adelaide tribes, the prevalence of circumcision and other customs, together with the fact of their being adjoining neighbours, seems to me to justify the assumption that they were practically the same people. I have therefore included these two tribes in the one nation.’ (R.H. Mathews, 1900, quoted in Amery 2000:4) 16 Chapter 1 which would identify Narungga as distinct from Kaurna – particularly apparent in the orthography (see §3.3).
The right of Narungga people to determine what is and is not part of their language is upheld at all points. This includes the incorporation or otherwise of changes apparent in the language after the onset of colonisation, and so includes some language features which may at times be assessed by others as sourced from elsewhere. This entails careful balancing of the requirement for authenticity, in terms of the historical language, with the understanding that language change is also authentic. Obviously language loss under conditions of colonisation operates at a very different level to that of change in a majority language. It is clear just from the expansion of the lexicon that language change was occurring in response to colonisation from the earliest records, with new and extended terms for introduced objects, animals and concepts. From here the language moves through a process of gradual change and loss, itself documented through records from the partial memory of important speakers such as Sarah Newchurch in around 1919, through to Gladys Elphick and other Point Pearce Elders in the 1980s (cf. §1.8). As discussed under §1.3, the criteria for judging authenticity and acceptability for the renewed language have to be determined by the language community. As the community linguist in this scenario, my task is to make the knowledge I bring to the table as accessible as possible to the community, firstly to aid in informing those decisions, and secondly to gradually pass over the responsibility for the work that I do. Then, as the descriptive linguist, my task is to document the language that results and the pathways by which it arrived where it is.
The goal of overall consistency strongly informs decisions made, regularising apparent competing forms and analyses to maximise the immediate useability of the language to new speaker/learners. See for example the discussion of decisions made for present tense and imperative suffixes in §5.4.1. At the same time, this is balanced by careful documenting of variations evidenced in the sources, and of queries not fully resolvable at this stage. For example, the Project dictionary includes an entire section of words recorded which are currently indecipherable, in terms of their phonological form, their meaning, or both (NAPA 2006). This ensures at once that the record of the language from the sources is complete, and that there is a current ‘variety’ which is coherent and ready to use.
The regular, productive and creative principles evidenced are broadly applied to the whole collection (for example, a single, clear attestation of an inflectional affix is implemented as the form for that morpheme in all cases). This principle prioritises the need to be able to use language, which means that reasonable, though poorly attested, possibilities must be welcomed and implemented, in the hope that supporting evidence will come to light at a later date. This is done transparently (both at community level and in the present book), as the paramount goal in language revival is to facilitate people to begin using their language to the fullest extent possible – even at the risk of having to update the analysis, and therefore the teaching, at a later stage. Language revival is inherently a process. If we wait for a complete and final Introduction 17 analysis, together with complete and final language planning decisions, people will never be able to begin learning their language. It is by these five principles that the language moved from a set of analysed historical documents into a renewed and living language for contemporary people. They will be evident as terms of reference for the grammatical description in this book. The section below outlines the range of current usage of the language in terms of participants and domains. This account is restricted to observation of events that I have been involved in, plus additional information that others have passed on to me. The actual extent of language use, whether of the renewed language or of Narungga interspersed in English, is not fully accessible to an outsider.
1.8 Current usage The Narungga people in the present live not only on the Aboriginal Reserve at Point Pearce and throughout Yorke Peninsula, but also in Adelaide and suburbs, and in various places around Australia as well as overseas.
School Language classes for adults and for children are an important locus of language revival activity, not only because of the focus on language use and learning entailed in these contexts, which then extends beyond the classroom, but also because the language is necessarily developed at lexical, discursive and even syntactic levels through the creative language activity required both for preparation of materials and in class sessions. A series of adult language classes was piloted soon after the language planning workshop phase. The initial purpose was in part to allow for any discrepancies in the language planning phase to be identified and addressed. In addition to this, it provided opportunity for the reinstatement of Narungga language amongst Narungga people, as classes were available only to the Narungga. Two ten-week modules were run under the auspices of NAPA, taught by Tania Wanganeen and myself and funded by Tauondi Inc. In a taped evaluation following the classes, every one of the students commented on a renewed spiritual and cultural connection as a direct result of their involvement in the revival of the language. In the following year, five graduates of this program undertook an intensive course in Linguistics for Language Renewal (Narungga), designed and taught by myself. The language used in the early adult classes spanned the full range of the available grammar and lexicon as represented in draft versions of the community dictionary and grammar (now published as NAPA 2006 and Wanganeen and Eira 2006 respectively). Students implemented formulaic sequences, wrote and presented welcome and self- introduction speeches, participated in question-and-answer exchanges and verbal games, and engaged in semi-spontaneous conversations within suggested frames of grammar and/or topic. Aboriginal Education Workers (AEWs) from these classes then taught a subset of what they were learning to Aboriginal students attending the Area schools, assisted by Tania Wanganeen, and writing their own teaching materials and resources in the process. Students from beginner year levels through to the high school classes were involved in this first phase of teaching in the schools. They sang songs, constructed sentences with a limited number of variables, used greeting exchanges, and wrote and presented short self- 18 Chapter 1 introductions. The AEWs reported an increase in confidence of both themselves and their students in the school situation. Some difficulties caused by the lack of language teaching resources, copyright concerns, teacher continuity issues and other problems led to a period of consolidated negotiations between NAPA, local schools and the then Department of Education and Children’s Services (DECS). This three-way partnership is now coming to fruition, in the form of a structured curriculum, departmental support for resource development, and agreements as to the involvement of local Narungga people in the teaching of the language at school. NAPA are also planning to set up a community resource centre for both children and adults to learn and use the language outside of school hours.
Workplace At the NAPA offices, Narungga greeting exchanges are commonly used between staff, and sometimes on the phone. Some office staff also converse in Narungga on occasion where possible. This commonly occurs as a recycling and extension of conversations held in class. Letters from NAPA, and flyers for events which they host, now usually include opening and closing or other brief segments in Narungga, especially when they are written to people involved with the language project. Maitland Area Hospital has put up dual signage throughout the hospital, through consultation with NAPA, and has obtained a tape of Tania Wanganeen reading the signs. Some meetings with Tania have been held at the hospital to raise staff awareness and understanding.
Home and daily use Families of adult students are beginning to use Narungga greetings at home, as well as an increased number of Narungga words interspersed in English, and a few familiar sentences. At least one family is using considerably more than this, with instructions to the children as well as segments of general conversation often being carried out in Narungga. Adult students who meet coincidentally during the day sometimes carry out basic information and news exchange at least partly in Narungga, and several people use Narungga for greetings and closures, including on the phone and in email. During adult class days, some Narungga can be heard during breaks, in contexts such as organising food or borrowing cigarettes, and the AEWs report casual use by their school students in the playground and on school excursions, in part as a strategy for strengthening ingroup boundaries. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the influence of the project is now spreading further into the Narungga community, as signs and even T-shirts have been seen sporting language in the Project orthography.
Formal events Requests for speeches in Narungga to open events are becoming common all over Narungga land. Several students and some other workshop participants have carried out this function, usually (but not always) with assistance from Tania to write the speech. A number of existing speeches, including some from an earlier stage of the project written by Reference Group members, are commonly used as templates, which people adapt according to preference and the requirements of the occasion (cf. §7.3). A prominent Introduction 19 exception to this is Tania herself, who usually writes a new speech from scratch for each occasion – thereby also providing additional speeches to use as templates. School students have also been involved in formal occasions for which they have written and presented short speeches. Tania’s daughter, aged eight years at the time of writing, is regularly delivering a speech to acknowledge land in her school assembly. A preliminary proposal for dual signage for select locations throughout Narungga land is being developed, with the participation of the local Council.10 Any moves towards implementing this would of course require considerable further discussion with a range of stakeholders.
1.9 Research sources The final section of this chapter provides a brief assessment of the various sources used for Narungga language analysis and development. The nature of the Narungga sources is such that it is not useful to list all items containing language. Some words and whole lists reappear in many different sources. Many items contain no more than a few words within a much larger English text; taped discussions of language frequently yield very little in the way of examples; edited reproductions of various combinations of earlier work abound, and so on. Here I include only primary sources, noting their main variants and reproductions, major secondary historical sources, recent and current sources which have been central to the renewal project, plus a few collated sources which are well known and readily available. In the same way, it should be noted that citation of sources throughout this book is not comprehensive, but reflects these same priorities. I have listed the sources by speaker, where known, as it is that original source and the time of collection that we are most concerned with here. This fits in with a general move to acknowledge Aboriginal participants in language research more directly. As Alice W. Rigney put it: If we go down the track of just doing it [using the academic name as reference for language documentation] because it’s under a recognizable name like Tindale, we’ll never ever get the point across that Louisa was the one that gave Tindale the information ... Louisa is someone that we should acknowledge, because she actually gave the information. (Interview 2005) Abbreviations used throughout the book for Narungga sources also reflect this focus. The times of collection are broadly categorised in relation to the mission period and the language renewal era, as (i) Early, (ii) Mission period, from 1868-1915, (iii) Intermediate, during the first half of the century following the mission period, (iv) Recent, from the sound recordings made in the 1960s to the beginnings of language reclamation in the 1980s, and (v) Current, dating from the intensive effort starting in 2000. This last category includes persons and language events that were important for the development of the language, as well as documents and tapes made. Note that collections made in the time of the mission were not all made on the mission – notably, Louisa Eglinton left the mission on an ‘exemption’ long before she recorded her language in the documents below.
10 The preliminary proposal is based on a draft map created through the Language Project. The language data for the map was collated by Moyna Carter, and an artist’s representation drawn up in the form of a wall map by Melina Magdalena (see front cover). 20 Chapter 1
1.9.1 Early ‘Tanne Arrito’,11 in Snell, Edward, 1988. The life and adventures of Edward Snell: The illustrated diary of an artist, engineer and adventurer in the Australian colonies 1849 to 1859. Edited and introduced by Tom Griffiths, with Alan Platt. North Ryde, N.S.W.: Angus and Robertson and The Library Council of Victoria. Snell was a traveller and diarist who stayed for some time in the southern region of Narungga land and cohabited with ‘Tanne Arrito’. A small section in Snell’s diary constitutes the oldest Narungga language source available, which makes it a very important document. Its 124 items include twenty-eight verbs, most of which are unrecorded in other Narungga collections. In addition, small but significant differences between the representation of ‘Tanne Arrito’s’ pronunciation and that represented in other sources may support the division into a northern and southern dialect reported by some community members. A fairly consistent lenition of initials in particular is evident as compared to other Narungga sources. While this may reflect something specific about either this speaker or the collector’s hearing or notation practices, the possibility of dialectal difference cannot be discounted. These are precious indications, as most of the language collected is from the mission period or later, so that any dialectal differences have become merged.12 For example, it is in this list that apparent fricative allophones of /b/ and /d/ appear (for example, TA/S
1.9.2 Mission period Eglinton,13 Louisa, and George Eglinton. In J. Howard Johnson, 1930-31. ‘The native tongue: A valuable vocabulary’. The Pioneer: 26 December 1930, 9 January 1931, 16 January 1931. Ms. version Johnson, J. Howard, 1899-1905. Vocabulary, Lower Yorke Peninsula (Collected from George and Louisa Egginton, c.1899-1905). Manuscript. Mitchell Library B1656. This is a reliable list of around 400 words, carefully collected, but Johnson’s practice of transcription by analogy with English words renders the phonology somewhat inaccessible (as in
11 Possibly Dhadni Warridu (meaning Ocean – Second daughter) 12 Another potential avenue for investigating this possibility should be the McEntire list (see below), as it was collected outside of the mission, in the north of the peninsula. Unfortunately, however, the transcriptions of this list are very low in quality and reliability. 13 Grandmother Louisa’s surname appears in various documents as both ‘Egginton’ and ‘Eglinton’. Introduction 21 not fully clear to what extent George Eglinton (Louisa’s non-Aboriginal husband) was the direct consultant rather than Grandmother Louisa herself, bringing the pronunciation recorded into question. Nonetheless, as the list was re-edited some years later by Grandmother Louisa and Tindale (see below), both the words and the phonology of the collection have been confirmed to a very large extent, making it an important resource for the present.
Howitt papers, held in Museum of Victoria. Including Appendix to XM 214: The Turra tribe. Personal letters between Howitt and Kühn, Sutton and others, and draft notes by Howitt for Fison and Howitt’s 1880 publication Kamilaroi and Kurnai. Although many discrepancies and confusions make these manuscripts somewhat daunting to use, they are a particularly important source for family terms and descriptions of social structure (cf. NAPA Forthcoming a). Howitt, A.W., 1996. The native tribes of south-east Australia. Facsimile edition. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press. (First published in 1904.) This book uses information from Kühn and Sutton, as well as some from Elders living outside of the mission, including ‘Shooting Tommy’ and a man who either was known as, or whose totem was ‘Wortu’ (probably ‘wombat’). As for the manuscript sources above, the material in the published version is subject to many discrepancies.
Kühn, J.W. and Fowler, W., 1886 [c.1880]. ‘Yorke’s Peninsula, South Australia’. In E. M. Curr (compiler) The Australian race, 2, 67. 143-145. Kühn was the first superintendent of Point Pearce mission (1868-1915). Many discrepancies are evident in Kühn’s contribution of around 125 words. However, the list does include some items not recorded anywhere else, and his contribution to family terms in particular (especially in letters to Howitt – see above) has proven to be invaluable despite difficulties in interpretation.
McEntire, Edward, 1879. ‘List of words in the language of the Wallaroo tribe’. In G. Taplin (compiler), The folklore, manners, customs and languages of the South Australian Aborigines. Adelaide: Government Printer. McEntire was a ranger who collected language, apparently from people living outside the mission (listed as residents of Wallaroo and Kadina). The quality of some transcriptions (around forty words in total) is extremely low: McE
Sutton, T.M., 1890. ‘The Adjah-durah tribe of Aborigines on Yorke’s Peninsula: Some of their early customs and traditions’. Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society of South Australia 2, 3rd session (1887-88), Royal Geographical Society. 22 Chapter 1
Sutton was the superintendent of Point Pearce in the 1880s. His transcriptions are of fairly low quality, but his collection of around fifty words, together with his comments, does shed some light on a number of terms concerning clan or totem groups and family relationships.
1.9.3 Intermediate Newchurch, Sarah, and Harry Richards, 1920. In J.M. Black, ‘Vocabularies of four South Australian languages—Adelaide, Narrunga, Kukata, and Narrinyeri—with special reference to their speech sounds’. Transactions of the Royal Society of SA 44. 76-93. (First published in 1919.) A reliable list of nearly 200 items, carefully collected (mostly from Sarah Newchurch), which includes some phonetic detail and is the only historical source to systematically record aspects of grammar and short paradigmatic sentences. The list is also an important record of the kinds of shifts that were occurring in the language by the immediate post- mission period. The article as a whole is very useful for comparative data.
Eglinton, Louisa, 1935-. In Norman Tindale, Notes on the Kaurna or Adelaide tribe and the Natives of Yorke Peninsula and the Middle North of South Australia, 1935- . Bound manuscript. N.B. Tindale Collection, South Australian Museum Archives AA338/1/35, including Supplementary papers. Bound manuscript. Catalogued as Untitled papers. N.B. Tindale Collection, South Australian Museum Archives AA338/2/68. A reliable list, carefully made. This was essentially a review of Eglinton/Johnson by Grandmother Louisa and Tindale, the main benefit of the revision being that Tindale’s clarity of transcription now makes the phonology accessible. Also published in 1936 as Tindale, Norman, Notes on the Natives of the southern portion of Yorke Peninsula, South Australia. A set of handwritten notes on library cards is also extant, apparently made during Tindale’s consultations with Grandmother Louisa, and held at the South Australia Museum: Narranga, Yorke Peninsula. N.B. Tindale Collection, South Australian Museum Archives.
Hughes, Gladys,14 and Sarah Giles, 1938-39. In Norman Tindale, Harvard and Adelaide Universities Anthropological Expedition, Australia, 1938-1939, vols 1 and 2. Bound manuscript. N.B. Tindale Collection, South Australian Museum Archives AA338/1/15/1 and AA338/1/15/2. This list seems to have been collected very rapidly, and is of very poor quality to the point of uselessness.
1.9.4 Recent Ellis, Catherine, with Gladys Elphick and Cliff Edwards, 1963. Untitled. Tape. AIATSIS A115a and b, and
14 Usually known as Gladys Elphick. Introduction 23
Ellis, Catherine, with Cliff Edwards, Gladys Elphick, Gert Goldsmith, Myrtle Kite, Amy Owen, Joe Owen, Rosie and Edie Stevens, 1964. Narungga meeting. Tape. AIATSIS A116b. Culturally important, as the only publicly available tapes of Narungga in existence at the time the intensive language renewal phase started, these tapes are nonetheless disappointing in terms of language per se. The participants discuss pronunciation and meaning of a few words, but for the most part their discussion of language focuses on how little is remembered.
Contemporary Elders, in Kirke, Brian, with Gladys Elphick, Phoebe Wanganeen, Doris Graham, Eileen Jovic et al, 1988. Narrunga language kit. Adelaide: ASTEC, SACAE. This is the main source of recent language use, based on the work of several Elders from Point Pearce, including Gladys Elphick, Doris Graham, Phoebe Wanganeen and Eileen Jovic. The earlier lists of Eglinton/Johnson and Newchurch/Black are strongly influential, with an evident preference for Johnson’s spelling, and reproduction (sometimes respelt) of grammatical components recorded in Newchurch/Black. The core of the kit comprises twelve lessons based on ninety-six words, but it also includes important additional materials such as an accompanying tape, a spelling list of 120 words, and the wordlists recorded by Kühn, Johnson, Black and Tindale. A number of manuscript fragments of the work that resulted in this kit are still held by Elders. The production of this kit was highly significant as an initial move towards language revival, leading to language embedded in the curriculum at Point Pearce school, but no attempt was made to analyse or synthesise the wordlists or the elements of grammar they entailed at this stage. The work of these Elders provides an important record of the language accepted as Narungga in the 1980s, emphasising certain aspects of surviving historical phonology and giving authority to a number of words which appear to be relatively recent loans.
Graham, Doris May, and Cecil Wallace Graham, 1987. As we’ve known it: 1911 to the present. Underdale: ASTEC, SACAE. An autobiographical work by two Elders who grew up on Point Pearce, this book includes a word list which also comes from the self-collection work done for the Narungga Language Kit.
1.9.5 Current Narungga Language Project workshops Discussions of Narungga in all its known phases and decisions made for many aspects of the renewed language, particularly orthography, morphology and lexical paradigms. Some speeches and other linguistic items were developed during this process.
Narungga adult language classes Early use and development of renewed language. A number of sentence and short conversation items were recorded. 24 Chapter 1
Wanganeen, Phoebe Auntie Phoebe was the consultant Elder for the project. Her memory of and views on language are highly regarded. As well as her contribution during the 1980s (see above), during the Project she provided crucial focus on particular elements of phonology, and carefully recorded around forty words onto tape.
Wanganeen, Tania The current most fluent speaker of the renewed language, Tania has also been the main teacher and the main writer of speeches, public signage et cetera. Her preferences, arrived at through consultation with various others, especially Auntie Phoebe, have often been the deciding factor in choices for morphology, priorities for teaching and pronunciation, et cetera.
Miscellaneous speeches Several speeches and similar items have been developed in reference to a small number of texts developed early in the renewal process. These have become a recyclable resource that is a key reference for advanced language learning and development. A selection of these is in preparation for publication at the time of writing, intended as a base from which people can develop further speeches and other items.
Key resources Wanganeen, Tania and Christina Eira, with the Narungga Aboriginal Progress Association, 2006. The fragments of Budderer’s waddy: A new Narungga grammar. Vol. I: Teaching grammar. Adelaide: Narungga Aboriginal Progress Association. Narungga Aboriginal Progress Association (NAPA) (compilers), 2006. Nharangga warra: Narungga dictionary, 1st edition. Adelaide: Narungga Aboriginal Progress Association. The main dictionary and community grammar books now available constitute a resource for the present work in that they record the final presentation of the analysis and community development of language as now taught.
1.9.6 Additional sources Condon, Herbert Thomas, 1955. ‘Aboriginal bird names, South Australia’. Parts 1 and 2. South Australian Ornithologist 21, 6/7 and 8. 74-98. Lexical resource only, collated from other sources, mostly Tindale. An ornithologist, Condon used existing wordlists to identify the names of birds in various languages. Its particular usefulness lies in that he specifies the birds by their scientific names.
Hill, D.L., and S.J. Hill, 1975. Notes on the Narangga tribe of Yorke Peninsula. Adelaide: Lutheran Publishing House. Compiled from sources mostly from after the mission period, this booklet provides a useful and accessible summary with pictures of artefacts. Introduction 25
Wanganeen, Eileen (compiler), with Narrunga Community College (researchers), 1987. Point Pearce: Past and present.Underdale: SACAE. This is an important book culturally and a marker of the renewed interest in language generated in the 1980s. It presents Narungga history from a Narungga perspective, focussing especially on the mission period onwards, with photos. All the language materials are reproduced from earlier documents. In addition to these major Narungga sources, a number of cognate sources are drawn on frequently in this book for comparative evidence. Unless otherwise stated, the sources for these comparisons are those in the List of abbreviations: A/WK, H/Nu, McE&McK, S&H, Sch and T&S. Kaurna data, if not otherwise marked, is drawn either directly from T&S, or indirectly via A/WK, which is primarily a useful collation and reorganisation of primary sources.
2 Phonology
2.1 Bases for analysis The phonology set out in this chapter focuses on the contemporary language, developed and spoken by the Project group, in adult classes, by advanced speaker/learners in the community, and according to teaching practices and policies. The broad phonetic descriptions below emphasise target pronunciations and a projected phonology of the language as it spreads and settles. This phonology is developing from a combination of sources and influences, as outlined below. The target phonology for the renewed language takes the historical language as a base, incorporating changes that have become established over recent generations. The resultant phonology demonstrates a shift from the historical language at the levels of phonemic system as well as allophonic variation. However, as community knowledge of the historical forms of the language increases, intermediate articulations have also begun to emerge, as a shift away from English articulations towards the historical ones in some cases. Teaching targets for pronunciation are assessed by reference to: Phoebe Wanganeen. Auntie Phoebe was the senior Elder most directly involved with renewal of the language, and her authority on language matters still carries significant weight. In regard to phonology, Auntie Phoebe focused on the pronunciation of a small selection of phonemes imbued with high symbolic salience: in particular the dental stop, and some phonemes represented in minimal pairs known to her. Tania Wanganeen. As the senior language worker, principal teacher of adults, and most fluent speaker to date, Tania holds considerable responsibility in shaping the renewed phonology of Narungga. Tania’s teaching in this area initially relied on the direction of Auntie Phoebe, plus myself, and the phonological implications of the project orthography.1 Kevin ‘Dookie’ O’Loughlin. Uncle Dookie also has an important status in the community, as a respected core member and cultural teacher. His concerns about phonology focus on particular features of pronunciation in both Narungga and Narungga English, accepted as identifying characteristics of Narungga speech in general, and of the Point Pearce community in particular (especially a heavy post- vocalic / /). He is also an advocate of relearning historical articulations. Gladys Elphick. Auntie Gladys (d. 1988) was a prominent and respected Elder whose language knowledge is very highly regarded in the community. Although she is recorded on a number of privately-owned tapes, the poor quality of these recordings renders them fairly restricted for the purposes of phonetic analysis. Also available,
1 That is, the orthography developed for and by the current Project, which is fully discussed in Chapter 3.
26 Phonology 27
however, are some of her comments on pronunciation, both on tape and in written documents. Her biographer, Betty Fisher, participated in the Project, largely with the goal of ensuring Auntie Gladys' knowledge was represented. The base analysis of the historical phonology relies primarily on transcriptions available in historical documents, particularly those discussed in §1.5. Although most of these documents taken alone would be quite unreliable for phonological purposes, when taken together they provide a fairly comprehensive resource both for analysis of the phonology in the early stages of colonisation, and for its process of change from the mission period on. In addition, records and analyses of related languages provide a second source of comparison, as well as a number of analytical hypotheses to test against the Narungga data. The various spellings used in historical sources have to be interpreted on the understanding that (a) collectors are trying to notate what they hear (rather than a phonemic analysis), which is influenced by their first language (English, or in some cases German with English as a high-use second language), and (b) their spelling is constrained by the letters and conventions of the Roman script. (Black and Tindale are exceptions to the latter, as they employed some phonetic characters. Their transcriptions are also broader than that of most collectors.) For example, the word / a al /2 ngayidjali ‘father’ is recorded by various collectors as follows:
(2.1) N&R/B adj li aitjali adj li Kühn (various dates) ishale ishalee ishali ishalie Khn tchela McE igeelu Howitt (various dates)3 adjala
In the first place, it is a general expectation that where one collector writes < > and others record the word as vowel-initial, the < >is likely to be correct, on the basis that the lay person tends not to hear sounds (or, in this case, sounds in particular positions) which are not used in their first language. In this case, both language-internal and comparative evidence support this analysis, as / aji/ is widespread as 1SG. Secondly, Kühn’s
2 Contemporary target. Aboriginal languages do not tend to use diphthongs, so the first syllable would originally have been divided into two by a glide: /aj /. The / / of contemporary Narungga reflects historical / /. 3 Collected by Sutton, recorded in correspondence with Howitt in 1882 (XM 383). 28 Chapter 2 that
2.2 The phoneme inventory 2.2.1 Vowels Narungga has a three-way vowel distinction /a u i/. The possibility of a length distinction, as analysed for Nukunu (H/Nu) and Kaurna (A/WK), is left open for reasons of low salience to speaker/learners and lack of clear documented evidence. No minimal pairs are evident. At phonetic level at least, it has been decided to represent long vowels orthographically in around twenty-five words, according to (i) contemporary pronunciation of commonly used words – for example guuya ‘fish’, graadidja ‘flash, stuck-up, self- admiring’, biiru ‘silver gull’ – and (ii) evidence of written sources where this is reasonably reliable (cf. §1.5) – for example muuya LE/T
(2.2) mayi NLK and Wanganeen 1986
The unmarked pronunciation of the basic three vowels is assumed to approximate to [a ]. Although this is the target pronunciation, at this stage of language renewal their specific realisation remains highly variable, so that a study of allophonic variation in vowels must await further establishment of the language. In earlier phases, spelling
4 See Amery (2000:115-120) for a description and examples for Kaurna, Eira (2008) for a detailed account for Waywurru and Dhudhuroa, or Austin & Crowley 1995 for a step-by-step guide to the process. Phonology 29 choices and some commentary in the historical documents, together with cross-linguistic support, suggest a number of regular processes and tendencies, as follows:
(i) Long /u/ Long /u/ is raised according to Black (1920). This is of course difficult to verify from collectors’ spellings, as
(ii) Word-final /u/ In Nukunu, lowering and loss of rounding is evident in this position (H/Nu). This appears to be paralleled in Narungga, as evidenced by collectors’ use of
(2.3) N&R/B
(iii) /a/ preceded by /w/ Again in Nukunu, raising and slight rounding of /a/ is evident after /w/ (H/Nu). Likewise, in Narungga sources, this is suggested by the choice of
(2.4) Khn
In Hercus’ analysis of Nukunu, /a/-rounding is restricted by a following palatal or retroflex. In Narungga, however, the retroflex appears not to inhibit /a/-rounding:
(2.5) Khn
There is even one instance of
(2.6) Sutton 1890
Note also Black’s (1920) observation that ‘the preceding vowel [that is, before [ ] or [ ]] is indistinct in quality, owing to the peculiarly elevated position of the tongue, so that one feels in doubt whether it should be represented by [a], [ ], [ ], or even [ ]’ (Black 1920:79). In line with Nukunu, however, there are no instances of
(iv) /a/ followed by /w/ H/Nu notes diphthongisation and rounding of /a/ followed by /w/ in Nukunu. Narungga sources appear to evidence this in Narungga also, by collectors’ choice of either
30 Chapter 2
(2.7) TA/S
(v) /a/ preceded by /j/ Finally, H/Nu documents raising and fronting of /a/ after /j/ in Nukunu. Narungga sources suggest a parallel process by the use of
(2.8) TA/S
Of these processes and tendencies, graduates of the language class appear to be moving away from the lowering and unrounding of word-final /u/, even to the point of raising both /u/ and /i/ in final position, as per English phonotactics. Although I have heard Elders centralise an /a/ before a retroflex, language class graduates do not appear to favour either this process or the conditioning of /a/ after /j/. On the other hand, this cohort does tend to raise [u ], and also [i ], as well as using allophones of /a/ in response to a preceding or following /w/, as above. In addition, /a/ tends to be centralised in final position. These general initial tendencies, together with the processes indicated in the historical language, may or may not become an established part of the phonology of the renewed language.
2.2.2 Consonants Table 2.1 sets out target articulations as taught for the consonant inventory of the contemporary language. Note that I use voiced symbols for stopped consonants to reflect community perception of the characteristic pronunciation of these sounds, which is sometimes described in contrast to the equivalents in surrounding languages.
5 I have used the symbol < > to represent Black’s long italic
Table 2.1: Consonants in contemporary Narungga6
peripheral apical laminal bilabial dorso- alveolar retroflex dental palato- palatal velar alveolar stop b g d d nasal m n ( ) (d ) affricate tap or flap trill r lateral l ( ) (l) approximant w j
Features of this analysis which differ markedly from present understanding of historical languages of this area include: Contemporary speakers consistently use an affricate, rather than the historical palatal stop. Only two retroflexes are clearly to be heard at present (the stop and the flap) although the lateral and nasal do occur intermittently and may become target pronunciations. (Articulations replacing the remainder of the historical retroflex series are discussed below.) It is in the retroflex series that Auntie Gladys’ articulation is clearly different from that of current usage. The series [ , , ] can be distinctly heard on the tapes of Auntie Gladys, as can a retroflex approximant (which appears to alternate freely with the alveolar). Only one laminodental is clearly in general use (the stop). Tania Wanganeen does use a laminodental nasal, on the basis of the phonological understanding of the language she has acquired, but as she has not overtly taught it at this stage, the general tendency is to pronounce it as alveolar. Because laterals do not occur in word-initial position, which is the position of highest salience in the renewed language for dentals, the question of the laminodental lateral has not been significant. Although they do occur in the context of a dental consonant cluster, this can be accounted for by environmental conditioning. However, a laminodental lateral has been included in the phoneme inventories of both Kaurna (Amery 2000) and Nukunu (H/Nu). Table 2.2 shows the likely historical consonant phoneme inventory, with divergences in the contemporary language noted in brackets for comparison. The symbol (?) signals that the use of the phoneme in contemporary Narungga is not yet settled. The rhotics are only tentative, and will be discussed in the following section.
6 Some older speakers also use /s/, mostly as a grammatical loan of English plural, and also in a variant of Birldumarda as [bi dumast ] (a bat-like spirit being and messenger). The workshop group has agreed, however, that /s/ is not to be taught as part of Narungga. Athough I have no particular evidence for the suggestion, I wonder if Birldumarda or [bi dumast ] might not be a Narungga-English hybrid incorporating English ‘master’. 32 Chapter 2
Table 2.2: Consonants in 19th century Narungga compared with contemporary consonants
peripheral apical laminal7 bilabial dorso- alveolar retroflex dental palatal velar stop b g d d ( ) nasal m n ( n) n (?) (nj) affricate tap or flap trill r lateral l ( l) l (?) (lj) approximant w ( ) j
Analysis of rhotics Narungga currently has a three-way rhotic distinction. This is a strong feature of teaching due to the documentation of what appears to be a number of minimal pairs in the sources relying on this distinction, such as the selection below. Although precisely which phoneme is indicated in which word is not fully retrievable in most cases, spelling strategies of collectors seem to indicate three rhotics – most likely / /, / / and /r/. Cross- linguistic comparison is also helpful:8
(2.9) a. /r/ vs / / N&R/B
b. ? vs ?9 LE/T
7 The comparative work of S&H suggests that there may be only a single laminal series, with allophonic conditioning including a restriction to laminodental word-initially. This possibility has been mentioned on occasion during the Narungga project, but for articulatory and conceptual purposes it is necessary to teach them separately, hence leaving the question to people more focused on reconstructive analysis. 8 A representative selection of source spellings is shown. 9 The community has decided to disambiguate these as barra ‘hole’(/r/); bara ‘blackwood’ (unspecified rhotic). Phonology 33
c. / / vs ? L&GE/J
d. / / vs ? Sutton 1890
e. /r/ vs / / LE/T
The use of
10 I assume the
2.3 Allophones 2.3.1 Voicing of stops Because contemporary speakers are all first-language speakers of English, voicing is conceptually distinct, although at this point it is not systemically distinct. Consequently, the voicing distinction has been a recurring focus of workshop discussions in terms of contemporary correct articulation versus historical authenticity, the distinctiveness of the Narungga system as against the English system – and in particular the ramifications of the question for the orthography. Stops (and the affricate) have the following allophones in the contemporary language:
(2.10) [–vce +aspiration] [n ph ] ‘Nunga’ [+vce –aspiration] [bu ja] ‘cigarette’ [–vce +long] [gak a] / [gak ha] ‘head’
A small number of general tendencies for the distribution of allophones were observed independently by different speaker/learners during the initial development phase of the project. It was generally accepted that these tendencies could be treated as default allophonic rules:
(2.11) Stop b [–vce +long]: /V __ V [yak ana] ‘older sister’
Morpheme boundary, or at least the boundary between two lexical morphemes, appears to inhibit the application of this ‘rule’, as in the place names [m a+gaw ] and [m nla+kaw ], or common words like [m la+bara] ‘nostril’ (nose+hole).
(2.12) Stop b [+vce]: /N __ [ba da ‘rock’
(2.13) b [–vce]: /L __ [m k ‘face’
The third ‘rule’ (2.13) is rather more consistently documented in the sources, the second (2.12) appearing more commonly for /b/, while source spellings quite often represent /d/ and /g/ as having either articulation. Voicing is also subject to free alternation for a number of words, particularly amongst Elders for the two hundred or so words retained by that cohort, and especially word- initially: [kha la] or [ga la] ‘fire’, [th a t ] or [d a t ] ‘ear’.13 ( Aspiration patterns tend to follow those of English.) For the younger generations, however (that is, younger than the Elders), voicing of stops is now settling into a standard form in many words. The voiced allophone is in general the preferred articulation word-initially, both now and (apparently) historically. This may be the primary motivation for community perception of their language as voiced, distinguishing it from other languages. However, a few well-known words – generally recent additions to the language – are more usually pronounced with the voiceless counterpart: [kh mba] ‘urine’, [ph nd ] ‘mouse’. Articulations which can be predicted from the above general tendencies are overtly taught – however, this principle is sometimes disregarded where documented records
13 I am leaving aside at this stage the question of whether consonant cluster components assimilate to place of articulation. The learning and articulatory effort is certainly targeted to the first component of the cluster. Phonology 35 appear to indicate the use, or at least collectors’ perception, of both variants. Details of this type have been maintained in a collated database, against the possibility that later research may reveal patterns of allophonic variation, speech characteristics of individual speakers, and/or the directions and pace of language change for particular phonological questions. In addition, a gesture has been made against the prescriptive tendency of an orthography by listing several possible pronunciations of many words in the published dictionary, where 'rules' such as these are applicable (as well as the morphophonemic alternations described in §5.5), and according to the ‘standard forms’ noted above. The latter are, to my knowledge, holding out, but the full effects of the interaction between these factors, the voicing implications of the orthography, and the voicing/aspiration norms of English, remain to be seen.
2.3.2 Retroflexes and ‘r-clusters’ A prominent feature of Narungga people’s pronunciation of English, and a symbolic marker of Point Pearce identity in particular, is a strongly emphasised post-vocalic ‘r’. Although this feature is prominent primarily in the speech of those who identify with Point Pearce, it is recognised as identifiably Narungga, both within the community and amongst non-Narungga Aboriginal people. This then functions as a readily available reanalysis of retroflex consonants as / C/. This is discussed overtly as well as commonly implemented wherever a historical retroflex is indicated. The exception to this general rule is that the retroflex stop is taught by Tania, and occurs in free variation in the pronunciation of other speaker/learners, dependent on the individual and the word in question. Note that, due to the salience of stopped sounds in general, this series functions as a focal point for maintenance of historical articulations, evidenced in both the retroflex and the laminodental series (see below) – although not in the palatals.
2.4 Phonological processes As a teaching/learning strategy for phonological processes not employed in English, a conscious distinction between formal and informal pronunciation has been initiated. The distinction follows along the lines of variations which can be associated historically with carefulness or casualness of speech. In particular, there are three alternations affecting nasals and laterals, described below.
2.4.1 ‘d-clusters’ and prestopping In the contemporary language, an intervocalic nasal or lateral is preceded by the corresponding stop in formal speech (that is, according to place of articulation), forming what I will call a ‘d-cluster’. This is now conceptualised as a basic cluster which is simplified for rapid or informal speech, and reflects prestopping of a lateral or nasal in the historical language:
(2.14) /d adn /, /d adn / dhadni ‘sea, surf’ N&R/B
14 Note also ‘Tanne Arrito’s’ own first name, which may well be the same word. 36 Chapter 2
/wa l /, /wa / wardli ‘house, hut’ LE/T
Although many monomorphemic words are recorded both with and without prestopping, some, such as [gadl ] ‘dog’, have become standardised in the contemporary language in one specific form. Regarding the prestopping phenomenon in Nukunu, H/Nu specifies that: it occurs at the end of the first syllable of the word (as demonstrated for Narungga above. Syllable-final nasals and laterals are not prestopped), it is avoided in the first component of a compound (Narungga examples include dhidna ‘foot’ b dhinna danga ‘sole of foot’ TA/S
(2.15) dhidngi ‘elbow’ N&R/B
Finally, several historical records as well as contemporary examples indicate a metathesis of the ‘d’ and the basic lateral or nasal. This may suggest a fairly early beginning to the reanalysis of prestopping as a d-cluster, but in some cases may simply indicate the difficulty of early collectors in hearing and representing prestopping:
(2.16) wadla ‘wallaby’ (male) LE/T
While many of the above observations refer to historical records, they are pertinent to the emergence of the contemporary language in that current language teaching practice is heavily reliant on the forms as transcribed. This means that not only the regular conditions motivating prestopping, but also its irregular occurrence as recorded, plays a large part in determining the target pronunciation of individual words in the teaching vocabulary. Phonology 37
Orthographic policy closely reflects the variant ways in which these alternations have been recorded, and is discussed in §3.4.1.
2.4.2 ‘r-clusters’ and alveolar/retroflex alternation In the contemporary language, it is taught that a cluster of / NC/ or / LC/ may be pronounced in informal language as simply NC or LC:
(2.17) [ba nda] b [banda] ‘rock’ [b lta] b [b lta] ‘possum’
This reflects a historical alternation between retroflex and alveolar nasals and laterals in this position (as also in Nukunu – H/Nu): LE/T
2.4.3 ‘y-clusters’ and palatal/alveolar alternation In the contemporary language, a palatal approximant following a nasal or lateral may be omitted in informal speech, according to teaching practice:
(2.18) [gakaw lja] / [gakaw la] ‘hair’ [gaka binjini] / [gaka binini] ‘forehead, flat forehead’
This reflects what appears to be a historical alternation between a palatal and alveolar nasal or lateral intervocalically: Khn
15 Samples only. 16 The palatal nasal is often transcribed
In contrast to the case for d-clusters, here it is the cluster which is now treated as the basic form, which may reflect the simple articulation status of the historical phoneme, or perhaps the relative familiarity of comparable clusters in English. If in the renewed language the simple nasal or lateral had become the basic form, there would be no reason to ‘add’ the approximant – rather, the simple consonant would alternate with a d-cluster.
2.4.4 Conclusions While it will take some time before the phonology of the renewed language becomes more stable, it is possible even at this stage to make a reasonable statement about its developing characteristics as well as identifying crucial influences. The phonology of the renewed language is strongly responsive to four main factors:
Teaching. Currently there is one main teacher of adults, and her students are teachers in school language programs. Tania’s pronunciation and overt teaching of pronunciation, both in a general sense as well as in regard to individual words, are key determiners of the developing pronunciation standard. Tania also records language on CD and tape, and is currently the most prominent speaker at public events. Orthography. At this stage of language renewal, speaker/learners rely heavily on written resources, in particular dictionaries. The implications of the orthography therefore act as a significant contributor to their pronunciation habits, especially given the level of authority ceded to the written form. This is likely to restrict the use of allophonic and morphophonemic variants, increasing the use of variants deemed formal, as these are more commonly represented orthographically. Interpretation of the orthography will of course vary to an extent between individuals depending on factors including their degree of exposure to Tania’s teaching. The orthography is discussed in detail in Chapter 3. Existing understanding of Narungga phonology. This includes understanding of the advice of Elders or other prominent community members, which entails some variability between different advisors, and understanding shared by the community as a whole about significant symbolic markers of a Narungga way of speaking, whether that be in Narungga or in English. English phonology. As the first language of all speaker/learners is English, the phonology of English at an unconscious level is a stronger influence on pronunciation than intellectual knowledge about the historical language. This relates directly to findings for the long-established revival language Israeli Hebrew, in which speaker pronunciation tends to reflect the Ashkenazic (with ‘introduced’ European influences from Yiddish) rather than Sephardic (with the preferred Semitic influences, from Arabic) (Zuckermann 2008). Because of the unconscious level and strength of this first-language influence, target pronunciation in Narungga focuses on a number of salient articulations which either are retained by some Elders of the community, or are critical to disambiguation of minimal pairs. Some extension of these selected articulations to other members of the series can be observed – for instance, in Tania’s use of the laminodental nasal. Given these four primary influences, some characteristics likely to become established in the phonology are: Phonology 39
Retention of r-clusters, for symbolic group identity purposes. Reduced alternation between d-clusters and simple consonants, and likewise between y-clusters and simple consonants. The alternation may be retained in informally standardised forms of certain words such as wardli ‘house’ vs. gagga-warli ‘hat’, and familiar alternations such as [gakaw lja] / [gakaw la] ‘hair’. Use of d-clusters and y-clusters in less familiar words is likely to become standardised according to ease of pronunciation, so [g lala] or [g lalja] rather than [g ljalja] ‘salmon’, and even more so, in line with their orthographic representation. This leans towards the more formal (that is, more complex) pronunciation, with some exceptions where contraindicated by historical sources or overwhelming current convention: winnara ‘frosty’ LE/T
2.5 Stress and phonotactics 2.5.1 Stress The documentation of the language as per LE/T in particular, which includes stress marks in nearly every word, clearly demonstrates first syllable stress. This is supported also by evidence from related languages (H/Nu, Amery 2000). The stress on a few words has shifted in present usage, including the highly salient Nhaʞrangga ‘Narungga’ itself. While the stress on this word in particular is unlikely to shift backwards in the broader Narungga community, its nonconformity with the general pattern of the language has drawn comments from those most closely involved in the language renewal. Some place names which have been transferred into English have also undergone a stress shift. There is some indication of shifting stress in longer words with affixes added, such as banggaʞrangga (banggara-ngga country-LOC17). Other than these few exceptions, first-syllable stress is taught without controversy (although not necessarily always adopted easily by speaker/learners).
2.5.2 Word and syllable structure Narungga syllable structure conforms essentially to (C)V(S) (where S represents sonorant consonants) – although a shift has become evident in this structure, which is discussed under §2.5.3. In regard to the historical language, there is some question as to whether a final / / (now [ ) is also possible:
17 Cf. §5.2.4 for discussion of this grammatical loan. Some have gone so far as to hyphenate this word for the purpose of easier reading:
(2.19) LE/T
Further possible examples are less clear, for instance ‘headache’, recorded by LE/T as
Table 2.3: Consonants occurring in word-initial position Peripheral Laminal bilabial dorso- dental palato- palatal velar alveolar stop b g d nasal m (n ) affricate approximant w j
Both 18 It seems also that untrained English-speaking collectors are quite likely to miss a dental nasal, for lack of anything similar in English. The dental fricative in English may have provided at least some base for perception of the stop. (The first language of one collector, Kühn, was actually German, but Kühn is not one of those who indicates recognition of a dental at all.) Phonology 41 2.5.3 Syllable boundaries As the (C)V(S) structure implies, consonant clusters across syllable boundaries are limited to SC. Records which potentially cause difficulties for this analysis can mostly be reconciled with a (C)V(S) structure in terms of probable earlier forms: LE/T (2.20) [bindi+dhura+anggi] b L&GE/J 19 A local non-Narungga person, not to be confused with the Narungga Elder of the same name who lived in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 42 Chapter 2 A (C)V(S) analysis is also possibly challenged by an alternative pronunciation of gayinbara ‘butterfish’ as [ga n ba a]. The word is highly salient because of the significance of the butterfish in contemporary daily life and cultural traditions, and several Elders insist on this pronunciation. This unusual structure may relate to the uncertainty as to whether / / is a possible phoneme word-finally, extending here to syllable-finally (cf. §2.5.2). I myself suspect that it results from the use of (2.21) budna ‘chest’. Prestopped in all sources: Khn, N&RB, O’Grady 1958 (cf. Barngarla 2.6 Morphophonemics 2.6.1 Compound reduction There is a general tendency in compounding processes for reduction of the component words. Two semi-regular reductive processes can be observed. The first, parallel to that noted for other Thura-Yura languages (see for instance H/Nu), is the avoidance of d-clusters in the first component. Although compounds are recorded 20 Different selections of the work done by the Elders in the 1980s reappears in various documents. 21 Note also the loan word gootna, in which the addition of the Narungga suffix –na does not entail the loss of the final stop in ‘good’. This is in part an avoidance of convergence with [g dna] / [g na] ‘faeces’. Phonology 43 both with and without prestopping for Narungga, the latter is more common. Elders generally avoid the consonant cluster for compounds in casual speech, even though they sometimes teach it formally. Sometimes, too, it is the second component which lacks prestopping. A sample of the documented range follows (cf. also §2.4.1): (2.22) Gudli+wardi (place name), L&GE/J A second process is the elision of the first phoneme, or sometimes the entire first syllable, of the second component. In many place names involving gawi ‘water’ for instance, the /g/ of gawi is elided. When this occurs, it is also often replaced by an apparently unpredictable epenthetic consonant: (2.23) LE/T (2.24) Epenthetic not added: LE/T Other elisions include: (2.25) murdla+anggi ‘old woman’ LE/T While I have not as yet been able to observe any general principles determining types and forms of elision, some preliminary indications may be provided by these three 22 Recorded as either ‘egg’ or ‘egg yolk’. ‘Egg white’ is more likely, however, given this compound and also Kaurna ngarru ‘chalk, white substance’. 44 Chapter 2 examples: 2.6.2 [Ě/w7] alternation Historical sources document a definite tendency, though by no means predictable, towards the alternation of [ ] and [w ]. The occurrence of [w ] appears to be conditioned to a degree by a following historical palatal,23 and is evident particularly across morpheme boundaries. In Table 2.4, Table 2.4: [ ]/[w ] alternation25 Recorded with [w7] Recorded with [Ě] Gloss N&R/B A pattern may be emerging here in regard to verb morphology. A present tense verb ending in /widja/ can be correlated with an imperative verb ending in /uru/. Possible alternative present tense forms using the -u form of the root are also tentatively evident. This alternation may indicate a form of verb class system, and has been implemented as such in the project, in part to solve a set of difficulties in analysing verbal mood marking (cf. §4.4.1). 23 Although this could be analysed for the renewed language as a more complex conditioning of following palatoalveolar or y-cluster, it seems more reasonable to analyse them now as fixed, rather than directly responsive to environmental conditioning. 24 I am not including 3.1 Introduction A standard orthography has been established for use in all materials produced by the Narungga Language Project, and all language classes taught on the basis of the Project. Although there is no intention to actively promote its use in place of the range of alternatives available up until recently, anecdotal evidence suggests that, probably as a result of its systematic use in these key arenas, this orthography will become familiar in the wider Narungga community. Previous to this project there had been no attempt to establish conventions for the notation of Narungga. Practices of collectors have ranged from more or less indecipherable efforts to ‘write it as it sounds’, through notating individual words by analogy with individual English words, to the broad phonetic transcriptions of Black and Tindale. None of these practices have represented a phonemic analysis. The legacy for the community in the present has been numerous available spellings for a single word which, given the low level of active language knowledge in the community, has left people with little means of identifying which spelling configurations are in fact the same word, or how they were likely to have been pronounced historically. An instructive, though not unrepresentative, example is garrdi /ga / ‘emu’, recorded as (amongst others): (3.1) < korre karde ghardie garrie coddy gudi garry >1 Although the range of variation is useful in that one writer’s spelling can serve to clarify another’s (for example final 1 Sources respectively: Condon (1955) (first two), Sutton 1890, Khn, TA/S, Wanganeen et. al. (1987), L&GE/J. 45 46 Chapter 3 To aid in facilitating this balance, entries in the Project dictionary (NAPA 2006) include, along with the standardised spelling of a given word, (i) notes about problems in identifying the sound of the historical word, and (ii) alternative pronunciations – that is, those which are not directly implied by the standardised spelling. These include voicing options and variants apparent in historical sources or the speech of contemporary Elders, as well as semi-regular alternations (cf. §2.2): (3.2) NAPA (2006) 3.2 The basic system The basic grapheme set for the contemporary language is set out in Tables 3.1 and 3.2:2 Table 3.1: Grapheme set: Vowels Length - + Front close i ii Back close u uu Front-central open a aa 2 The articulations identified in Tables 3.1 and 3.2 should be understood as teaching targets. Cf. Chapter 2 for discussion of the phonemic status of sounds represented here. Orthography 47 Table 3.2: Grapheme set: Consonants Peripheral Apical Laminal bilabial dorso- alveolar retroflex dental palato- palatal velar alveolar stop b g d rd dh nasal m ng n rn nh affricate dj tap or flap rrd trill rr lateral l rl approximant w r y The use of consonant digraphs, as well as the absence of some digraphs commonly found in orthographies of other Australian languages, directly reflects current perception of phonemes and series in the phonology. As explained in §2.3.2, the retroflex nasal and lateral (as they are represented here) are commonly realised as r-clusters. The digraphs rn and rl are nonetheless included because they are understood as part of the series that includes rd. These phonemes or clusters are treated as single phonemic units regardless of their realisation, and are taught as such. Members of the historical palatal series, however, are not understood to be single units, even though, as explained in §2.4.3, the historical status of this series does affect contemporary phonology. The former palatal stop is the only member of the historical palatal series which has phonemic status in the renewed language, albeit as an affricate. Consequently, unlike rd in the retroflex or r-cluster series, dj does not form part of a series for teaching or orthographic purposes. The sequences ny and ly in some words do not constitute another instance of digraphs in terms of community perception, despite the correlation of these letter pairs with historical phonemes, and therefore are not listed in the orthographic guide to the dictionary. There is no lh digraph specifying the dental lateral – again, because of its lack of status as part of the dental series as it is currently understood (cf. §2.2.2). The dental lateral being restricted to occurrence within a dental cluster, the orthography simply marks the salient members of this series: mudhla ‘nose’.3 A final set of digraphs, not represented in Table 3.2, is provided by the doubling of some letters. This is discussed under §3.3. 3.3 Voicing Although it is conventional in developing orthographies for Australian languages to avoid implying a voicing distinction, a conflict is evident here for speaker/learners of Narungga. Contemporary speaker/learners firmly distinguish between voiced and voiceless sounds, at an auditory and articulatory level, and it is important to them to select the appropriate variant for a given word. 3 This is uncomplicated as there are no recorded instances of the sequence /d n /. 48 Chapter 3 It has been decided however, after much discussion, to maintain the above convention for two main reasons: it facilitates access to the phonological system of the historical language, and it reflects a significant difference between the language systems of English and Narungga. The ‘voiced’ grapheme series was selected, partly because of community perception of their language as ‘voiced’ (cf. §2.3.1), and partly as a workshop decision differentiating Narungga visually from Kaurna. The Kaurna language revival working group (some of whom are also Narungga and were involved in this decision) were already implementing a historical spelling for Kaurna which favours the ‘voiceless’ series (T&S). There is no evidence that voicing alternation results in confusion as to the identification or meaning of the word. Given contemporary perception of the distinction, it is significant that records as recent as the 1980s have indicated in their choice of spelling both voiced and voiceless pronunciations of consonants in some words, such as 3.4 Double letters: nonstandardisation and underspecification An innovation of this orthography is the use of doubled consonants to indicate particular kinds of uncertainty in analysis of the phonology of a word. This is intended as a flag indicating emphasis of some kind in the source spellings, suggesting a non-English sound. It is also used in certain circumstances to denote simplification of an articulation due to morphophonemic processes, lenition or some other motivating factor. 3.4.1 Semi-regular alternations Two semi-regular patterns of alternation are treated in a nonstandardised manner in the orthography: 4 This is possible at this stage only because the main teacher has had the opportunity to learn the accepted pronunciation of words remembered by key Elders, is partly trained in linguistics, and has worked in the language for a relatively long period of time. Community representatives are concerned that encouragement to imitate the teacher may not be a strategy which will work well in all situations, depending on availability of teachers with sufficient language and/or linguistics training and approved by the Narungga. A second strategy under development is the production of electronic records of preferred pronunciations, as part of a CD ROM. Orthography 49 the use or otherwise of ‘y-clusters’ (historically, palatal/alveolar alternation – cf. §2.4.3), and the use or otherwise of ‘d-clusters’ (historically, prestopping – cf. §2.4.1). These alternations are optional, responding to factors including formality of occasion and carefulness of speech. They are primarily phonologically conditioned, but occur more commonly in certain morphological contexts (cf. §2.6.1). The orthographic policy for their representation is formed by two interacting principles: (i) reflection of the Narungga sources, and (ii) representation of the formal pronunciation of a given word. In some cases, where the word is well-known to speaker/learners, current usage may override both these principles. Where the d-cluster or y-cluster are likely, but not directly recorded in the sources (that is, as prestopping or a palatal), they are indicated by the use of double letters. The clusters are deemed likely for a given word under both of the following conditions: 1. The Narungga sources themselves display spelling strategies that suggest an attempt to emphasise an articulation or indicate a complex articulation. This may be the use of < >, or doubled letters, sometimes with a hyphen in between, including such evidence in another form of the same root (such as ngallugu (1PL.POSS) N&R/B < aligu>, L&GE/J Table 3.3: Nonstandardised treatment of alternations Cluster overtly Cluster covertly Notes represented represented y-cluster gulyalya ‘salmon’ dhumbulla L&GE/J Cluster overtly Cluster covertly Notes represented represented billalya TA/S Teachers are encouraged to use the dictionary spelling established in this way for a given word, but the simpler form (i.e., without the d-cluster or y-cluster) can be offered to students where it may serve as a guide to simpler pronunciation (for reasons of either register or individual ability). Similarly, where the cluster form is indicated but not confirmed in the Narungga sources, the simpler representation is formally taught as per dictionary practice, but the cluster form offered, as an option towards a formal register. While it has to be said that this policy (as indeed any orthographic policy at this point) is likely in itself to influence the future directions of language change, I have also observed that speaker/learners are tending to regularise the orthographic representation of these processes despite their current dictionary forms. This is particularly the case with well- known words such as dhinna baldha ‘shoes’ (dictionary form dhidna baldha). On the other hand, the underlying policy of tolerance of variation is a significant aid to general acceptance of decisions made for orthography, pronounciation, and other areas. In the context of language reclamation, the many views on these matters have high loading in terms of respect of old people who have passed on, validity of their knowledge, status of various families and so on. It is often quite crucial to have a practical policy that can accommodate everyone’s knowledge and language practices as valid. A second problem, as will be seen in §3.4.2, is that double letters are doing double duty in this orthography: they represent a likely specific cluster, as described here, and also clusters whose historical realisation is unknown (see below). Furthermore, the use of nn or ll for both d-clusters and y-clusters means that the specific identification of the cluster becomes irretrievable to speaker/learners even where it is not in doubt. The use of 5 Although Kudnarto is a famous name in Nunga history, the complex articulation is avoided by Narungga speaker/learners in this word because of its association with gudna ‘faeces’. Orthography 51 pronunciation notes in the dictionary only partly rectifies this problem. It is my hope that after a trial period of both orthography and language learning, problematic details of the present orthography such as this will be revisited (cf. Hoogenraad and Harrison 1999 for discussion of the timeframe needed to establish an orthography). Whether or not such a revision is feasible will depend on factors including the size of the community of use and the relationships between the groups within it, the value attached to the written word and its artefacts such as dictionaries, and, at another level, the degree to which change and development are an accepted condition of language revival. 3.4.2 Under-determined sounds As explained earlier, the nature of the Narungga documented sources is such that the exact form or forms of many words remains uncertain. Moreover, it is considered important to preserve options for the variations deemed acceptable, on an individual or register basis. Nonetheless, it is also considered important to select a standard form of each word for teaching purposes and production of materials. One strategy for balancing these two goals is to use double letters to indicate an under- determined, complex articulation in word-medial stops, laterals and nasals. This strategy is employed under similar conditions as for alternations, that is, (i) spelling strategies in the Narungga sources that attempt to indicate a complex of emphasised articulation, and (ii) evidence of other than a simple, alveolar articulation in either Narungga or cognate sources. Table 3.4 illustrates different types of cases for which double letters have provided a solution: Table 3.4: Double letters used for underspecification purposes Narungga Gloss Notes babbi ‘daddy’ LE/T Narungga Gloss Notes madda ‘knee’ Contemporary Elders 3.5 Conclusions The once-assumed goal of a phonemic writing system accommodating allophonic variation has been revisited with regard to the Narungga orthography. Many now are dubious about the idealism of such a goal, and two recent Australian texts on fieldwork call it into question (Bowern 2008, Crowley 2007), which could have significant effects on the next generation of linguistic fieldworkers. In the Narungga orthography, graphemes or grapheme units may in practice represent not only different allophones but a range of possible articulations from different forms of a single consonant, through to consonant clusters. The orthography has been carefully designed so as to provide a consistent representation of the sounds of the language, while at the same time underspecifying the range of possible pronunciations for a given word. While there are limits on the degree to which this is achievable, it is hoped that the decisions made for the orthography will at least highlight certain aspects of the historical phonology, points at which individual or sociolinguistically motivated choice is appropriate, and points at which uncertainties remain in the specific articulation of particular words. The heavy reliance of literate second language learners in general on the written forms of the language may have unwanted effects in fossilising particular pronunciations in response to the spelling of words, but the hope is that teaching and learning can, as planned, be strongly supported by oral modelling, whether in person or through electronic means. For the remainder of this book, the Project orthography will be used wherever phonetic, phonemic or source notations are not required. 4 Lexicon and word classes 4.1 Historical documentation As in many cases of heavy reliance on archival records, the resources for Narungga are severely restricted in terms of lexical field. Collectors were primarily focussed on recording the names of concrete, visible items. These were collected either by use of an English-language list, such as the surveys distributed by Taplin, Curr and others, or by pointing to objects and hoping that the answer reflected what the collector had intended. Both strategies mean that mistakes are rife, because of a lack of match either between collector intention and speaker response (e.g. TA/S 4.1.1 Distribution of the lexicon Nouns Nouns represent around sixty-five per cent of the total collection (of approximately a thousand words). Terms for animals, birds et cetera comprise approximately one-quarter of these, as do kin terms and other terms referring to people. Place names are well represented, with around a hundred names being recovered, and for the most part located, 53 54 Chapter 4 as represented on the map of Narungga land (Map, p. xvii). Around a hundred words for body parts are available, and more than forty plant names. Pronouns A useful set of personal and possessive pronouns is available in historical sources. While the set is not complete, it indicates enough of the paradigm for it to have been completed with the support of related language documentation. This process will be discussed in detail in §4.3. A small range of other pronouns are also recorded: three indefinite pronouns, a reciprocal, and possibly a demonstrative pronoun. The indefinite pronouns are: gudju LE/T (4.1) Gudju gadli. one dog ‘Give me that dog.’ (McE: ‘Give me em dog.’) Bullu refers to a third person whose name and/or identity is either not known, or not acknowledged in the context of utterance. The referent may be not present or not visible. Bullu may also be used in reference to a deceased person (Ellis et al. 1964).2 The third indefinite pronoun, wuba ‘something’, appears only in contemporary records. Yara ‘another, different’ is attested for Narungga in the words for ‘four’ – N&R/B 1 It has been decided in workshops (in a process which included Auntie Phoebe) to eliminate all instances of plural or plural-like final /s/ from official use. I have wondered whether wuba may be related to garrdi waba ‘fly whisk of emu feathers’, but there is no particular evidence for this. 2 Verbs Because collectors were not on the whole recording observations of language in use, verbs are relatively sparse in most lists. A notable exception is TA/S, which resulted from Snell’s daily interactions with ‘Tanne Arrito’. Of around fifty verbs recorded for Narungga, more than half are sourced from TA/S. This is unfortunately a problematic source in terms of reliability of transcription and at times translation. However, its early date makes it an extremely important source, as Narungga people can be confident that this is not the ‘mixed language’ some fear from the mission records. In principle it would be useful to establish a distinction between verbs of differing classes of transitivity, for such purposes as appropriate choice of ergative and absolutive. The historical data simply does not provide sufficient contextual examples to achieve this however. Only three verbs are recorded in context with two overt, direct arguments (N&R/B): (4.2) a. Nhindu bunggu-dja gadli. 2SG.ERG hit-PRES dog ‘You are striking the dog.’ b. Gadli ngaddu bunggu-dja. dog 1SG.ERG hit-PRES ‘I beat the dog.’ c. Badja ngaddu nhagu-dja. snake 1SG.ERG see-PRES ‘I see a snake.’ d. Gardla ngaddu bindjani-dja. fire 1SG.ERG make-PRES ‘I am making a fire.’ At this stage of language renewal, this amounts to a moot point, as ergative constructions are not yet widely used in the community of speaker/learners. The ergative pronouns are taught along with the rest of the paradigm, but used uncertainly by most to date. Nominal ergative morphology is absent from the Narungga sources, as discussed in §6.2.1. The establishment of a verb paradigm and/or verbal affixation which co-occurs with the ergative is thus a low priority, and has yet to be developed for the renewed language. Other word classes Minor word classes, grammatical words and also idiomatic expressions are quite poorly represented in the collections. A number of words are provisionally identifiable as adverbs and adjectives, due to their derivational morphology and lexico-syntactic behaviour. These are described in detail under §4.4 below. A small number of other classes are also indicated on the basis of syntactic behaviour and semantic grouping. These are summarised in Table 4.1. 56 Chapter 4 Table 4.1: Additional word classes Word Class Syntactic Examples Contextual examples behaviour Interjections free Ba! ‘Look out!’ (LE/T, standing L&GE/J) Nhi. ‘Yes.’ (Khn, N&R/B) Yagga! (exclamation of unpleasant surprise or fright – Khn) Badja! ‘Deadly!’4 Quantifiers pre ngarga ‘a lot, a crowd’ ngarga nhibu-ri nominal (N&R/B) mob Nunga-pl guridu ‘more’ (Khn) ‘a crowd of Nungas’ (N&R/B) Numbers pre guma ‘one’ (McE) burlayi nhibu-ri nominal burlayi ‘two’ (N&R/B) two Nunga-pl ‘two Nungas’ (N&R/B, Khn) Interrogatives N_V wanna ‘where, which Nhibu-ri wanna? way?’ (Khn, McE) Nunga-pl where wandi ‘where, which way’ ‘Where are the Nungas?’ (N&R/B) (Khn) anni ‘what, who?’ (McE)5 Nhinni wandi bammadja? 2sg where go ‘Where are you going?’ (N&R/B) Directionals pre verbal barni6 ‘to here’ (N&R/B, Barni bammani. ‘Come Khn) here.’ (N&R/B) ngunda ‘to there, away’ Ngunda bammani. ‘Go (N&R/B) away.’ (N&R/B) Finally, a negator is recorded by Kühn, occurring before the head: 4 A common Aboriginal English term expressing high praise. Badja is recorded with this meaning only in recent sources – and in older Narungga sources (LE/T, L&GE/J, N&R/B) with the meaning ‘snake’ and sometimes also ‘vermin’ (general). 5 This word has been agreed upon by speaker/learners but is uncertain in Narungga sources, appearing only in McEntire, a source of low reliability, as (4.3) Khn Project Walli barlu-na. NEG die-NOM ‘We have survived.’ 4.2 The expanding lexicon In addition to walli as discussed above, a second negator has been developed from manna ‘no’, showing a functional shift. While still used as an interjection as in Kühn (4.4) Project Manna buuya. NEG smoke ‘No smoking.’7 This shift is an example of the expansion of the resources of the language in the contemporary speaker/learner community. The low number of words in the historical sources overall, the relatively narrow focus of the collections, and the restrictions on available grammatical words clearly have a significant impact on the process of language revival. These limitations have given the community the impetus to consider, carefully and collaboratively, how to develop their language in ways that balance the need to be true to the structures and conceptual domains traceable in their ancestors’ records, with recognition of the need to fill functional gaps in the legacy that has been left to them. When the ‘gaps’ evident are defined in relation to expectations based on speaker/learners’ first language (one of Aikhenvald’s (2007) sixteen conditions for language change), this balance is often achieved, as in the case of manna, by the adaptation of a word or structure already established in the target language to the required ends. In this case walli, the verbal negator, was not perceived as appropriate. This judgment may stem from English usage of ‘no’ and ‘not’, but also reflects an awareness of differentiated word class behaviour which will be crucial to skilled use of sentence patterns. The possibilities for instructional signage facilitated by this extension of manna reflect the most salient aspect of language identity in reclamation situations: words. 4.3 Filling in the personal pronoun paradigm A representative set of free personal pronouns was recorded for Narungga: singular forms for both absolutive and ergative in all three persons, plus the dual and plural forms for first person absolutive. Similarly, all singular forms plus the dual and plural first person forms were recorded for the possessive, with the addition of 3PL. 7 Clearly there is some room for debate in my analysis of this new function of manna as a 'nominal negator', since buuya in this example is translated as a denominal verb. It is a matter for conjecture at this point whether the noun buuya has been reanalysed as a verb in this context. 58 Chapter 4 The remainder of these paradigms was reconstructed through community workshops, on the principles that: the paradigm should be internally consistent, and an almost exact parallel of this paradigm in Kaurna records indicates that pronouns attested for Kaurna but not for Narungga are highly likely to be common to both also (cf. Tables 4.2 and 4.3). Table 4.2: Kaurna personal pronouns (ABS and ERG) (A/WK) SG (ABS/ERG) DU PL 1 ngai / ngatto ngadli ngadlu 2 ninna / nindo niwa na ~ naa 3 pa / padlo purla parna Table 4.3: Kaurna possessive pronouns (A/WK) SG DU PL 1 ngaityo ngadliko ngadluko 2 ninko niwako naako 3 parnu ~ parnuko purlako parnako Tables 4.4 and 4.5 show the pronouns now in use. Shading indicates the pronouns which were developed in workshops: Table 4.4: Personal pronouns8 SG (ABS/ERG) DU PL 1 ngayi / ngaddu ngadli ngadlu 2 nhinni / nhindu nhiwi nha 3 ba / barlu burlayi barna 8 Sources: 1SG N&R/B < ai>, < aj>, < aiji>, McE Table 4.5 Possessive pronouns9 SG DU PL 1 ngayidju ngalligu ngallugu 2 nhinggu nhiwigu nhagu 3 barnu burlayigu barnagu There are discrepancies in the sources for some of these, but the analysis in this chapter is uncontroversial in the light of comparative evidence. Not only Kaurna records, but also Nukunu, Adnyamathanha and other related languages document a very similar paradigm (cf. S&H). Even within language-internal evidence, the attestation of barnagu (N&R/B) 3PL.POSS easily renders 3PL.10 The remaining pronouns were adapted from the Kaurna records to render a consistent, completed paradigm. The main discrepancies in the Narungga records are that: (i) L&GE/J lists 9 Sources for the possessive pronouns: 1SG N&R/B < aitju>, < aitu>, < atju>, LE/T (Museum notes) While in phrasal contexts the possessive pronouns are only attested as noun modifiers, translations given for some as single words suggest both modifier and predicative functions. For the renewed language, it is assumed that both functions are possible. For a discussion of inalienable possession cf. §5.2.1. 4.4 Identifying adverbials and adjectivals 4.4.1 Adverbs A number of time adverbials occur with the suffix –lu: (4.5) LE/T Khn S&H suggest this also as possible evidence for an ergative morpheme in Narungga, which they reconstruct as *-nggu/–lu in Proto Thura-Yura (cf. §5.2.4).13 Other than the use of this affix, there is little support in the sources for identification of words in the category ‘adverb’, as there are no contextual examples recorded. Words such as birayirga ‘moonlight’ could be adverbial, adjectival, or even nominal. For teaching purposes, the question is addressed syntactically, placing any word (or phrase) used to locate the utterance in time (or place) in an ‘adverbial’ slot at the start or close of the sentence (cf. §6.6 for discussion): (4.6) Project Dhargarri ngadjalana mandigu+muga-nubamma-dja. tomorrow my.daughter net+ball-ALL go-PRES14 ‘Tomorrow my daughter is going to netball.’ Warldalu, yardli yuggu manggu-dja gayinbara manggu-dja. hot.time, man boat carry-PRES butterfish pick.up-PRES ‘In the hot season the men take boats and get butterfish.’ Banyi dhamali dhilba-nu bamma-dja. morning MoFa south-ALL go-PRES ‘In the morning grandfather is going to the south region.’ 13 Compare Kaurna bukilyelo ‘yesterday’, which S&H suggest as possibly indicating reanalysis of an ergative-inflected demonstrative. 14 Notice the use of the present tense form in future contexts, as well as for the generic present, as in English. Lexicon and word classes 61 4.4.2 Adjectives A Narungga adjectival class, or perhaps classes, can be posited according to morphological and semantic criteria, as well as lexicosyntactically. By this last term I am referring to word formation structures involving this class. Occurrence with suffix –li. These adjectives are concerned with the physical characteristics of something – e.g. LE/T (4.7) gagga bulyu-li head black-ADJ ‘black-headed snake’ (LE/T, L&GE/J) yarlgu wigi-li leg long-ADJ ‘long-legged’ (LE/T, L&GE/J) minna gugu-li eye crooked-ADJ ‘cross-eyed’ (LE/T) At least bulyuli is also possible as a separate word, with the substantive gloss ‘black hair; black-haired’. I have not come across any of this set with a zero suffix (unless the place name Bunbu, the location of a Dreaming in which a woman is apparent as a stone, is the same lexeme as the stem of bunbuli ‘hump, lump’ in LE/T (4.8) a. gagga binyi-ni LE/T b. gagga binya NLK 15 Possibly conditioned by the nasal in the preceding syllable. 62 Chapter 4 c. murlga binyi-ni LE/T A number of words are recorded which appear to be semantically adjectival, but may exhibit verbal morphology – specifically, the present tense suffix –dja. It is not fully clear from the sources whether this is actually the form of the affix, or whether the words end in -dji or even simply –dj (cf. §2.5.2). This is also true, however, of some records which are more clearly verbs. Possibly the most useful categorisation of these words is as stative verbs. Like the first group, at least some of these words can occur alone, as verbs (cf. (5.6) for song text including (4.9) yarlgu-adjini-dji LE/T dhindu gambani-dj LE/T A third group of adjectives is characterised so differently from that described above that it is reasonable to analyse it as a separate class, or at least subclass. This subclass can occur before the head in a noun phrase, or predicatively. The only suffix recorded with this group is –na, which seems to have a nominalising function (cf. §5.2.5 for discussion). Table 4.6 summarises the syntactic roles fulfilled by this subclass: Table 4.6: Roles of adjectival subclass Adjectival Substantive Predicative burlga yardli burlga old man old ‘old man’ (Khn) ‘old man’ (LE/T, L&GE/J, Khn) mundhana anggi mundhana pregnant woman ‘pregnant ‘pregnant woman’ woman’ (Tindale 1938-39) (NLK) Ngayi warrana. 1SG ill ‘I’m ill.’ (N&R/B) Lexicon and word classes 63 Adjectival Substantive Predicative Ngadlu badja mandu gadli. Tania-gu warra wambana 1PL deadly fighter dog Tania-POSS language knowledge ‘We’re the mighty fighting badja. dogs.’ (Project)16 deadly ‘Tania’s language knowledge is deadly.’ (Project) Table 4.7 summarises the word classes taught. Classes are used to identify paradigms for slots in sentence patterns, identified in plain language terms such as ‘who/what’, ‘description’ and so on. Table 4.7 Word class summary Word class Notes Noun Around 65% of the total collection. Pronoun17 – Personal A complete paradigm reconstructed and developed. Pronoun – Possessive A complete paradigm reconstructed and developed. Verb Around 5% of the total collection. Includes stative verbs. Adjective One type identified by suffix –li (or in one case –ni) and position following the noun. One type either preceding the noun or functioning predicatively. Can take NOM –na. Adverb Some identified by suffix –lu, but syntactic slot generalised to any word or phrase denoting time or space. Interjection Directional Includes cardinals and words such as barni ‘to/toward here’. Interrogative Wh- words Quantifier – Number Quantifier – Other Auxiliary NEG walli 16 Football team song. 17 Indefinite pronouns are also labelled ‘pronoun’ in the dictionary, but have not been specifically taught. 5 Morphology 5.1 Historical documentation The morphology which is available has for the most part been recorded almost by accident, embedded in the collection of individual words. This, together with a small amount of grammar in N&R/B, has formed the greater part of the data for the morphological analysis, to be confirmed against cognate language resources and developed in accordance with community procedures as described in Chapter 1. Because of this paucity of collection, the rich morphology expected of Aboriginal languages of Australia is not adequately reflected in the available sources. Nonetheless, the contemporary community have found sufficient functionality in what is available to create new texts of various kinds. A small number of extensions have also been made to these initial morphological resources on the basis of related language data. This direction may become more useful in the future, but at present, it is more important to speaker/learners to consolidate what is known of their own language. Some regularisation has been implemented to clarify the probable structures indicated in the sources. At the same time, a number of valuable exceptions to these generalised rules have been maintained, for reasons of acknowledgment of important sources, and to maintain ready access to what may prove to be important evidence towards a more complex analysis, characteristics of language varieties, et cetera. 5.2 Noun morphology 5.2.1 Possessives The possessive suffix -gu is well attested for pronouns (cf. also §4.3):1 (5.1) ngalligu (ngadli-gu) 1DU-POSS L&GE/J 1 Two pronouns exhibit variations on this affix. Ngayidju 1SG.POSS (N&R/B) is readily explainable as assimilation of the [g] of -gu to the palatal following [ji]). Barnu 3SG.POSS is attested for Narungga (N&R/B, LE/T, L&GE/J), while Kaurna records offer alternatives parnu and parnuko. Cf. §4.3 for discussion. 64 Morphology 65 barnagu (barna-gu) 3PL-POSS N&R/B It also appears to be attested for a range of other words including LE/T Alienability The only direct evidence of an alienable/inalienable distinction comes from the separate translations of Louisa Eglinton’s nhinni anggi as (i) ‘your woman’ (L&GE/J) and (ii) ‘you are a woman’ (LE/T). Note that the former source predates the latter by at least thirty-six years (though whether speaker or collector are responsible for the translation is undetermined). Kin terms demonstrate a mix of the two strategies (sometimes incorporating semi-fused possessive pronouns): Table 5.1: Alienable and inalienable possessives in kin terms: free and bound (representative selection) Inalienable form Alienable form ngayi+djali ‘my father’ ngayidju adjali ‘my 1SG+father N&R/B5 1SG.POSS father father’ N&R/B < adj li>, < aitjali>, N&R/B < aitju adjali> 2 ‘Arm’ is recorded as N&R/B < antu>, LE/T Current policy is to teach a clear alienable-inalienable distinction, with a focus on pronominal choice. It was decided that despite the shift away from this distinction implied in N&R/B, the conceptual approach to the notion of ‘possession’ is of significant cultural value and an important example of different world views embedded in Narungga as distinct from English.6 The option of using the partly lexicalised possessive+kin terms found in the sources is also preserved, in the interests of conserving language as recorded and the possible information this may encode as to language change processes, individual variation, et cetera. 5.2.2 Plural/mass The plural/mass marker -ri is fairly well attested in historical sources. In the reinstatement of this affix, contemporary speaker/learners are moving away from the English grammatical loan -s as a plural marker. They are also moving away from the English model in which marking of the plural is not optional, instead redeveloping strategies for inclusion or non-inclusion of overt plural marking, according to the disambiguation strategies available in context: (5.2) Tania Wanganeen Marni bamma-ni ngadjiga-ri. good go-IMP my.friend-PL7 ‘Safe travels, my friends.’ but Nharangga dhura baddanawargu-ni. Narungga people all walk-PRES ‘Narungga people travelling together.’ The most likely historical attestations of plural -ri are tabled below. Of these, gudna-ri and yangga-ri seem to have a mass noun implication. Nhibu-ri is the only one whose gloss in the sources directly reflects the plural meaning: Khn Table 5.2: The plural/mass marker -ri Attestation Also recorded Gloss Source banya-ri banya ‘younger Kühn in Howitt Khn 6 Practical interpretation of the principle can be highly individual: one woman insisted that her dog was ‘inalienable’, and someone else proposed that their football team was too, although this second suggestion was not in the end supported by the group. 7 ngadjigari < ngayi(ngayidju)+adjiga-ri 1PL(POSS)+friend-PL Morphology 67 Attestation Also recorded Gloss Source yarla-baldha-ri yarlga ‘leg’, baldha ‘leggings’ LE/T, L&GE/J LE/T Other possible candidates include: (5.3) bindi-ri spirit.place-PL8 ‘white people’ (Khn gurrild-ri (gurri+dhura-ri) dance+person-PL ‘receiver(s) of songs and dances from the spirits’ (Sutton 1890 (5.4) waldja-ri ?warldu-ri neck-PL ‘intestines’ (esp. made into a meal of tripe) (Khn Due to lack of data, the question is left open as to whether the historical language had a nominal dual marker, as in Kaurna -rla (T&S) (derived from purla 3DU). Community interest in this question may lead to it being practically addressed for later language development. 5.2.3 Allative and purposive Historical sources record only one definite example of an allative case, which fortunately is particularly clear. N&R/B record 8 Or bindira-ri (< bindi+dhura-ri spirit.place+person-PL). Neither bindi nor gurri are directly attested as free morphemes in Narungga sources, but can be found in cognate language sources: Kau (5.5) a. Dhargarri, guuya-nu bamma-dja. tomorrow fish-ALL/PURP go-PRES ‘Tomorrow I’m going fishing.’ b. Buuya-nu ngunda bamma-dja. cigarette-PURP away go-PRES ‘I’m going outside for a smoke.’ c. Ngayidju gadli bundha-nu bamma-dja. 1SG.POSS dog mad-ALL go-PRES ‘My dog is going mad.’ d. Nha marni Nharangga yarda-nu. 2.PL health Narungga land-ALL ‘Welcome all to Narungga land.’ e. Ngabara, gawana wangga-dja Nharangga warra ngallu-gu aunt uncle speak-PRES Narungga language 1PL-POSS gunganya-nu. child-ALL ‘Aunties and Uncles are speaking the Narungga language to our children.’ 10 See §5.3.1 for discussion of this string of two suffixes. 11 Interestingly, a LOC-ALL suffix in Wuluwurrung (southwest Victoria) also appears to be used as a purposive, as in: Kuramuk-i yana-n-wan possum-LOC go-HORT-1PL.INC ‘Let’s go for possums’ (Blake 2003:35. Original record from Thomas 1862.) Morphology 69 5.2.4 The question of locatives While the data in historical records indicating a Narungga locative is contentious at best, a practical solution has been established for the renewed language. This section sets out possible indications of the locative in the historical language, and decisions made for the renewed language. A morpheme -la can be found in historical sources, suffixed to gardla ‘fire’: (5.6) Parabara wanarni tjindu kalala kambarni wild peaches (Eucarya acuminata) come sun light burn jarugareitja madeitja tjindu kalala kambarni. go round & gather them (?) sun light burn ‘Wild peaches hanging in the trees, the sun will burn you (to the colour of fire) we will gather you (for food).’ LE/T (transcription, gloss and translation: Tindale) As discussed in S&H, either an ergative or a locative reading is possible for this use of (5.7) Garganya-ga LE/T This is a function which implies considerable potential for productive derivation. All of this must await further data before it can be resolved more satisfactorily. In the community of speaker/learners, the urgent need for a locative has motivated the selection of -ngga. This has been decided on the justification that: some form of ergative and locative can be demonstrated for the historical language, albeit with little clarity, in Narungga records, the form -ngga is clearly attested for cognate languages (cf. S&H), and 70 Chapter 5 there is a slight possibility that the word Nharangga itself exhibits this suffix. This, then, is the locative suffix for the emerging language, the further analysis of -la, along with the origins of -ga, being left to future consideration. 5.2.5 The suffix -na There are in general three discernible functions of the affix form -na in historical sources: (i) forming deverbal nouns, (ii) forming adjectives or deadjectival nouns, and (iii) as place name suffixes. I will refer loosely to this affix as a nominaliser, although it should be understood that its distribution includes referring terms, predicative adjectives and noun modifiers. In the contemporary language, words exhibiting this suffix often function as nouns: Table 5.3: The suffix -na Affix function Example Also recorded type (i) Deverbal N&R/B 12 Affix function Example Also recorded type (category N&R/B In addition, there is also a small set of words recorded with a -nya suffix, which appear to fall into some of the same categories. It is not certain, then, whether this is an allomorph or a different morpheme altogether: (5.8) a. Noun b noun N&R/B 13 May be derived from warra ‘language’, via the concept of ritual language used for healing – note Kaurna. 72 Chapter 5 b. Place name LE/T 5.2.6 Another affix? One further possible affix, -du, is unfortunately only recorded with manya ‘rain, cold’ (N&R/B 5.3 Bound pronouns Since bound pronouns have not yet been addressed in workshops, the questions around this topic remain open at this point. This reflects a conscious community prioritisation process which balances reclaiming Narungga ways of thinking and speaking with the need to avoid overloading new speaker/learners with too much that is unfamiliar. This section is intended to serve as preliminary analysis and base for language development in the future. 5.3.1 Narungga records The evidence for bound pronouns is minimal, but recorded in a linguistically reliable source, albeit a relatively late one. N&R/B records forms for all three persons, in the singular, for intransitive subjects: (5.9) < adj li barni bamani >. (bama-ni- ) my.father to.here come-?-? ‘My father is coming here.’ Morphology 73 The forms of the second and third person bound pronouns are not entirely clear from this sparse data, particularly since they do not obviously represent an abbreviated form of the free pronouns. The most consistent interpretation is that the above constructions place the pronominal after the present tense affix (-dja or -ni – cf. §5.4.1), suggesting the forms: (5.10) 1SG -(a)yi 2SG -nu 3SG -ng It is also possible that N&R/B 5.3.2 Comparative evidence Community reconstruction of Narungga pronouns has relied heavily on the evidence of almost exact duplication of this paradigm in Kaurna and Narungga records. For this reason, attestation of other bound forms in Kaurna records is likely to be acceptable also in the community as further evidence of Narungga forms. What this evidence demonstrates is a clear derivation from the free pronouns, such as in: (5.11) Nurnti-’dli. away-1DU (free form ngadli 1DU) ‘Let us two go away.’ (T&S) Nguiyu-attu-rla. warm-1SG.ERG-3.DU (free forms ngatto 1SG.ERG and purla 3DU) ‘I will warm [my feet].’ (T&S) Yurre-paia-ndu-nna! ear-chew-2SG.ERG-3PL (free forms nindo 2SG.ERG and parna 3PL) ‘Pay attention to them!’ (T&S) 14 It appears that the verb ‘see’ has two allomorphs, nhayu-, as implied by Kühn It is theoretically possible, then, to fill out a proposed paradigm for Narungga on the basis of the pronouns already established. A starting proposal might be: Table 5.4: A proposal for a bound pronoun paradigm SG DU PL 1 -(a)yi -(a)dli -(a)dlu 2 -nu -(i)wi -a 3 -ng -(u)rlayi -(a)rna Narungga sources also lack evidence of a SUBJ-OBJ or ERG-ABS suffix sequence. As (5.11) above demonstrates, Kaurna evidence suggests the affixation order V-ERG-ABS. These examples also demonstrate the absolutive alone as recorded in T&S, affixed to an intransitive verb. Occurrence of bound pronouns in the limited Narungga data available is restricted to clauses with a full NP or a zero NP. With the full NP, the bound form appears to be optional, while in the few recorded examples with a zero NP, it is consistently included. It is worth noting that T&S attest the co-occurrence of bound and free pronouns. Amery and Kaurna Warra Pintyandi (Forthcoming) suggest that use of the bound pronouns alone may signal lower formality. 5.4 Verb morphology 5.4.1 Tense, aspect, mood Only the present tense is overtly indicated in the collections. Historically, there appear to have been two forms, -dja and -ni (with allomorphs -ni and -n). The use of both forms in the same source (N&R/B) suggests that the two forms existed side-by-side for a period at least. The identification of -ni and -dja is complicated by the fact that both are also attested as imperative markers.15 Table 5.5 shows the distribution of the three forms -dja, -ni and -n in the sources, together with the tense/mood gloss given in the sources. 15 In fact, not only all three of the clearest verb suffixes, -ni, -dja and -ru, but also the zero suffix are all attested as imperative. Clearly some crossing over of forms and meanings has occurred here – whether due to grammatical loans, loss of language knowledge, collector error, or a combination of all three. This suggests some caution is warranted in any statement as to the identification of the various forms. Morphology 75 Table 5.5: -ni, -n and -dja as present tense and imperative markers in Narungga sources (representative selection) PRES IMP Function not specified -ni N&R/B Sutton (1882) may be a further source, listing a set of related terms which may involve a verbal derivation: 16 Probably also bamma-ni-ng, bamma-ni-nu (cf. §5.3.1 for analysis). 76 Chapter 5 for this particular question however, because it is the only source which attempts a systematic recording of a paradigm, in a phrasal context (cf. Appendix A.1). The same source records the only clear examples of verbs with bound pronouns – again, including what appears to be a present tense affix (cf. §5.3.1 for discussion). What this source may show is a mix of affixation strategies resulting in part from the mix of languages whose speakers were brought to live at Point Pearce from the late nineteenth century. For the renewed language, the regular present tense form is taken to be -dja. This choice is motivated by the spread of attestation of -ni IMP and -dja PRES across sources, and a community policy of consistency, or regularisation. There is, moreover, a general preference amongst the language development community towards ensuring distinction of Narungga from Kaurna, being the prominent language of renewal in the region as well as being very closely related linguistically. In the case of verbs, the apparent similarity between Narungga and Nukunu forms has often been noted by workshop participants. In contrast, it has been observed that the characteristic -ndi morphology of Kaurna verbs is entirely absent from Narungga records: Table 5.6: Comparative verb morphology Kaurna nakkondi wandendi wonggandi Nukunu nhakutya wantatya wangkatya Narungga While -dja has been selected as the default present-tense marker, a fixed number of ‘exceptions’ recorded with the allomorph -n are nonetheless being maintained because of their appearance in the oldest documented source. There is also some possibility that this source could indicate dialectal difference between southern and northern Narungga. Discomfort with a consonant-final word, however, has led to the decision to teach this as -ni. It remains to be decided whether the form -ni is also to occur in conjunction with 2SG and 3SG pronominal affixes (cf. §5.3.1). In addition to the present tense suffix, the consultant community have decided to incorporate two forms indicated for Nukunu in the sources (H/Nu): the past tense suffix -i and the present continuous -nta (cf. the reconstructed Proto Thura-Yura durative *-(n)tha, together with evidence from Nukunu, Adnyamathanha and Kuyani, in S&H).17 Although it cannot be verified, an affix -ri may be attested for Narungga: Khn 17 In practice, although the decisions to incorporate these two tense markers were made at the same workshop, to my knowledge no-one has implemented or even mentioned the present continuous since. Probably the simple present provides sufficient specification at the current level of language renewal. Morphology 77 shall serve as a reasonable source for much-needed supplementary verbal morphology for the renewed language. The bare stem form is given for many verbs, particularly in TA/S. The stem form in Kaurna is used for the perfect and imperative. One example of the stem with the imperative function does occur in N&R/B (baga yunggu ‘give me tobacco’). A phrase recorded in TA/S is also worth some attention here: (5.12) Snell: My suggestion: Wallaru nga(d)li mari. Wallaroo 1DU go ‘Let’s go (to Wallaroo).’ If my suggestion is correct, this would then be a second example of a stem form in a phrasal context, again as a (weak) imperative. Other than in these two cases, the stems are glossed in English citation or nonfinite forms. Amongst current speakers, the stem is being used as either a non-tensed or an underspecified form. Example (5.13a) dates from the 1980s – that is, well before the current renewal project – while (5.13b) is from late 2003: (5.13) a. Nhinni wanna bamma? 2SG where go ‘Where are you going?’ b. Ngadlu barni garri, marni+dhandu wangga. 1PL (to) here today good+build speak ‘We are here today, to say “Well done”.’18 More recently still, the stem form has also begun to emerge as a non-tensed verb aiding the construction of much-needed complement clauses. This will be discussed under §6.5. Imperative affixes While, as mentioned above, both -ni and -dja are recorded as imperative markers, much more widely attested (in terms of numbers of stems, not sources) is the imperative suffix -ru. The suffix -dja is recorded as a nonsingular form (N&R/B),19 while -ru and -ni are recorded as singular or unspecified for number (cf. Table 5.7). The affix -ni appears to be a reduction of nhinni (2SG), which may explain its restriction in the sources to a singular addressee. Similarly, it is possible that the form -ru may be related to Barngarla nuro (2SG). The lateness of collection of the nonsingular form (1919) leaves it in question whether there was also a dual form in use earlier. Table 5.7 lists all verbs attested with a -ru suffix, and all those with a -ni suffix which are specified as imperative. Unspecified attestations may have been either imperative or present tense: 18 Marni dhandu is a new collocation created to fill a need to offer congratulations, and is itself another example of the use of the bare verb stem in the renewed language. 19 Possibly a polite suffix derived from an earlier 3S form (S&H). 78 Chapter 5 Table 5.7: -ni and -ru imperatives in Narungga sources20 Stem Affix IMP Unspecified bamma- ‘come, go’ -ni N&R/B Selection of one or the other suffix may reflect some kind of verb class system. One general tendency, observed in S&H, is the occurrence of -ni as an intransitive verbalising suffix, which may suggest a division into -ru for transitive verbs and -ni for intransitive.22 Not all attested verbs clearly fit this pattern however. The verbs ‘drink’ and ‘eat’ are attested with -ni and -ru respectively (both in Kühn), yet there is no clear reason to place them in different categories according to transitivity.23 Nhaguru is attested as a free- standing imperative: ‘Look!’ (McE, NLK) – although in this case an elided object could possibly be posited, given its attestation with an ergative subject elsewhere (cf. Example 4.2 c). Alternatively, phonological conditioning could play a part in the choice of verb class or affix. Table 5.7 above shows a general tendency for the suffix -ru to occur following a /u/-final stem, and the suffix -ni otherwise.24 The above possibilities currently not being fully resolvable, the imperatives are currently being taught in a regularised pattern according to the phonological conditioning 20 Another possibility is wanarni (LE/T), glossed as ‘come, ripen’ – although the apparent retroflex is puzzling here. 21 Also listed as 5.4.2 Some possible additional affixes Inchoative -ni Several entries in the Narungga sources appear to indicate the use of inchoative -ni (attested also in other Thura-Yura languages – cf. S&H). The most likely examples are LE/T Applicative -nggu S&H suggest an analysis of the -nggu affix evident in yuri-nggu-ru ‘listen’ as a causative/applicative. This may encode a benefactive or possibly locative function. Yuri is attested in cognate languages as ‘ear’, although Narungga records list dharldi for ‘ear’ (LE/T, L&GE/J, TA/S, Khn), and yuri as ‘listen, hear’ (TA/S). A second possible instance of this affix might be walanggudja ‘cover’ (N&R/B The affix -la For the sake of completeness, one last verbal affix should be mentioned, whose identification must await further data. A suffix -la is indicated by the occurrence of LE/T 25 N&R/B gloss 5.5 Word formation (compounds) Both historical records and contemporary language development efforts include a significant focus on compounded forms. For the purposes of the following description I include under the term ‘compound’ any form which displays: shift in function productivity of derivation reduplication noncompositionality ordering principles other than those evidenced in phrasal or clausal strings, or morphophonemic alternation (cf. §2.6.1). Included in this are forms with one or more components whose meaning has not been identified. This is particularly common in the case of place names. Forms of more than two separate elements are not included, being classified instead as phrasal lexemes: (5.15) arndu bardu widhi gadja arm short quick digging.stick ‘(a type of) mouse’ (LE/T, L&GE/J) minna bilidi bidhigidja eye ? shine ‘wearing glasses’ (LE/T, L&GE/J) Assessments take note of current community analysis, so that words like bindranggi ‘white woman’ (LE/T, L&GE/J) are included as a construction of bindira+anggi (white.person+woman), even though historically bindira is itself a construction of bindi+dhura (spirit.place+person). Similarly, words which are now analysed as noncompositional are included, such as yara-burlayi (another+two) ‘four’ (Khn, N&R/B). Recorded compounds are almost exclusively nouns,26 with notable exceptions including a few verbs such as gurri+bungguru ‘dance (corroboree)’ (Khn) (dance+hit), the numbers three to five, and a number of adjectives or deadjectival nouns, such as yarlgu wigili ‘long- legged’ or ‘long-legged person’ (LE/T, L&GE/J). Productive or apparently productive compounding processes include: (5.16) + baldha ‘skin, clothes’ type of clothing + dhamba ‘disability’ type of disability + gawi ‘water’ place name indicating water source + wardli ‘campsite, type of building (also used metaphorically, as home, house’ in gagga-warli (head+house) ‘hat’) New productive compounding processes developed in community language workshops are noted in Table 5.9. 26 Although this may reflect the type of meanings expressed as compounds to a degree, it certainly is also a reflection of the over-representation of nouns in the collection in general. Morphology 81 Approximately 135 compound words are available in the documented sources. Of these, fourteen examples of reduplication are listed, and a further three compounds exhibiting semantic reduplication: (5.17) dhungga marda stink smell ‘bad smell’ (NLK) mayi + barrdu veg.food game ‘food’ (LE/T, L&GE/J) dhiya dhabarra teeth mouth ( < dha+barra ‘teeth+hole’) ‘drink’ (TA/S) Several of the reduplicated forms are phonologically reduced. The meaning of the reduplicating morpheme is no longer available for most of these: (5.18) billalya TA/S Two-thirds of the seventy words for which the meaning of the components can be identified take the general form MODIFIER+MODIFIED. Common subtypes include the following: Table 5.8: Modifier+modified subtypes Subtype Morpheme gloss Compound gloss whole + part birlda baldha ‘possum skin (cloak or rug)’ possum+skin (LE/T, L&GE/J, N&R/B) Binggaldi (place name) (LE/T, L&GE/J) (< binggu+dharldi) bandicoot+ear description + murdla+bagi ‘miserable’ (LE/T, L&GE/J) described ugly/wrinkled+forehead murdla+(a)nggi ‘old woman’ (LE/T, L&GE/J) ugly/wrinkled+woman location + mula+bara ‘nostril’ (TA/S) located nose+hole yaggi+wardli ‘sheltered campsite’ (LE/T, valley+house L&GE/J) 27 Note Tindale’s placement of secondary stress, supporting the analysis of underlying /bagubagu/. 82 Chapter 5 Subtype Morpheme gloss Compound gloss source + bira+yirga ‘moonlight’ (Khn) sourced moon+light ngammiru (< ngammi + ngaru) ‘breastmilk’ (TA/S) breast + egg (contents) Place names form several subtypes on their own, often referring to the features, description, or location of a water source: (5.19) LE/T, L&GE/J Features: Garrdi+malga emu+limestone Description: Gagga+(d)awi head+water Location: Murawi ( For compounds which display the less common order MODIFIED + MODIFIER, several general principles can be observed. All modifiers recorded in final place are adjectival: (5.20) gagga binyini dhuru bunbuli head+flat back+humped ‘forehead’ (LE/T, L&GE/J) ‘hunchback’ (LE/T, L&GE/J) The element dhamba ‘disabled’ always follows the head,28 as does -(a)gu (lit. ‘blocked’):29 (5.21) dharldi+dhamba mina+(a)gu ear+disabled eye+blocked ‘deaf’ (N&R/B) ‘blind’ (N&R/B) The above two principles interact with a tendency for heads which are body-part terms to be placed first: 28 Given the lack of a clear word class for dhamba itself, it is arguable whether it may in fact have the function of MODIFIED. The analysis given above has the structure DESCRIBED+DESCRIPTION, while the alternative would have the structure SPECIFICATION+SPECIFIED. 29 It is not fully clear whether this is best treated as a compound element or as a derivational suffix. In Narungga sources it appears only in reduced form, in minnagu. In the contemporary language, at least, it has no recognised lexical meaning, which would make it a derivational suffix. (Compare Barngarla mudhla ika ‘speaking through the nose’, Adnyamathanha (5.22) dharldi+bidi gagga+wilya ear-long head+foliage ‘rabbit’ (LE/T, L&GE/J) ‘hair’ (TA/S, LE/T, L&GE/J) The element gidja ‘little’ always follows the head: (5.23) yardli+yidja < yardli+gidja man+little ‘boy’ (McE) Finally, for compounds incorporating verb or verb-like elements, those elements are placed last: (5.24) dhindi wangga-na yarda nhanyari sun+talk-NOM earth+scratch ‘impudence’ (L&GE/J)30 ‘domestic fowl’ (L&GE/J) Compound words developed in recent workshops follow the patterns observed in the historical sources by design: Table 5.9: Examples of new compounds Compound and Gloss Structures Productive classes morphemic gloss exhibited muga-muga ‘ring’ reduplication round+REDUP wadlina warra ‘swearing’ description+ bad+language described dharlba+wawa ‘lipstick’ modifier+ lip+stick modified (calque) gagga dhara ‘hairtie’ location+located new class+dhara, by head+string (body-part first) analogy with+baldha mara baldha ‘gloves, mittens’ location+located31 +baldha hand+clothes (body-part first) (skin) 30 However, LE/T records this as Compound and Gloss Structures Productive classes morphemic gloss exhibited dhiya ‘dentist’ modifier+ new class+dhura/ dhura/bindira (Aboriginal/non- modified bindira (based on tooth+person Aboriginal) dhura burlga ‘leader’ – that is, community role or occupation)32 minna wardli ‘optometry clinic’ modifier+ new class+wardli eye+house modified (type of building b type of room)33 mingga miya ‘nightmare’ description+ bad+sleep described (quasi- verb element final) idja walanggwidja ‘bandaid, poultice, verb element final skin+cover bandage’ et cetera 32 The distinction between dhura and bindira is that the former is unmarked (that is, refers to an Aboriginal person), while the latter is specific to a non-Aboriginal. Whether the identification of the marked member of this pair has shifted is not obvious to me. The greater length and complexity of bindira identifies it as the marked choice at least historically. 33 Compare guna-wardli (faeces+house) ‘toilet’, which has shifted conceptually from ‘outhouse’ to an internal room. 6 Syntax 6.1 Language sources and language development The Narungga sources, from the oldest through to those gathered in the 1980s, were devoid of any texts longer than a single sentence, and many of these were clearly obtained by direct elicitation. At the start of the Project, no more than fifty sentences were available in total (cf. Appendix A.1). Almost all of these are from N&R/B – a late collection – that is, after the mission period. Sixty per cent are only two words long, and all the rest are only three words, bar one colloquial expression, and one (partially untranslatable) song verse.1 On the basis of this impoverished information, a simple syntax for the renewed language was constructed. Clearly, the corpus was desperately small. The syntax, then, differs markedly from that of the historical language in two main areas. Firstly, due to the loss of morphological knowledge, basic word order is taught as fixed. Secondly, no means of constructing complex sentences was available from the sources other than simple juxtaposition. These two significant changes are taught together with the background to this change, in order that (a) people understand more of the practical and linguistic effects of language loss, and (b) advanced speaker/learners can bring in variant word orders for pragmatic or discourse purposes, monitoring potential risks to comprehensibility. Despite the restrictions, the available syntactic base has proved sufficient for Narungga people to develop speeches, conversation sequences and stories. Declaratives, interrogatives and imperatives are all represented in the sources, as are transitive and intransitive constructions, and statives. The structures of the renewed language therefore have been able to start from those evidenced in the historical sources, extrapolated out to the broadest reasonable application. Since at this early stage of language renewal the idea of speaking in Narungga without simply relexifying English is very new to most people, the restricted range of syntactic possibilities provides a conveniently contained way of learning and practising language. More importantly, this procedural policy fulfils a crucial need to demonstrate that the language being taught is based squarely in Narungga language sources. However, the most experienced speakers are now beginning to develop strategies for complex constructions, which will be discussed under §6.5. Further aspects of syntax may be developed in the future on the basis of comparison and reconstruction. The syntax of the renewed language at this stage will be described in this chapter, together with its analytical base in the source documents, and possible directions for its development as evident in the most recent formal speeches (cf. NAPA Forthcoming b). A sample of sentences arising from current teaching practice and early implementation of the renewed language is given in Appendix A.2. 1 There is also one single-word sentence included, a verb with incorporated pronoun. 85 86 Chapter 6 6.2 The basic structures 6.2.1 SOV Narungga is taught as SOV by default, with some variation possible where comprehensibility is not at risk. The decision to teach SOV as the basic order reflects indications of SV in shorter sentences (6.1a-c), imperatives and declaratives showing OV (6.1d-e) and the S Goal V structure of several sentences involving travel, such as (6.1f). Importantly, a basic SOV order is confirmed also by notes in T&S for Kaurna – which is also now proceeding as a relatively fixed word order language (Amery 2000). (6.1) Historical sources (N&R/B) a. Dhindu garri-dja. sun rise-PRES ‘The sun is rising.’ b. Nhinni dhiga-dja. 2SG sit-PRES ‘You are sitting down.’ c. Nhinni warrana. 2SG ill ‘You are ill.’ d. Baga yunggu. tobacco give ‘Give (me) tobacco.’ e. Gagga walanggu-dja. head cover-PRES ‘I cover (my) head.’ f. Ngayidjali barni bamma-ni-ng. my.father to.here come-PRES-3SG ‘My father is coming here.’ Historical and comparative evidence for a default of SOV notwithstanding, most transitive examples with overt subject and object in the Narungga sources are actually not in this order, although certainly a verb-final pattern predominates: (6.2) N&R/B OSV a. Gadli ngaddu bunggu-dja. dog 1SG.ERG hit-PRES ‘I am beating the dog.’ Syntax 87 b. Badja ngaddu nhagu-dja. snake 1SG.ERG see-PRES ‘I see a snake.’ c. Gardla ngaddu bindjani-dja. fire 1SG.ERG make-PRES ‘I am making a fire.’ SVO d. Nhibu manggu- djabarla. Nungacarry- PRES wife ‘The Nunga man carried off (another man’s) wife.’2 e. Nhindu bunggu-dja gadli. 2SG.ERG hit-PRES dog ‘You are beating the dog.’ and with indirect object: f. Ngayi bamma-dja Munda-n. 1SG go-PRES Moonta-ALL ‘I am going to Moonta.’ In the case of (6.2a-c), the use of the ergative pronoun clearly distinguishes subject and object, rendering fixed word order redundant. Moreover, most of the sentences in this collection are clearly the result of direct elicitation of a paradigm. Here, this may have motivated the speaker to assign discourse prominence to the variable object, as distinct from the invariable subject pronoun. No obvious explanation is apparent for the SVO order of (6.2d-f). Possibilities such as syntactic coding of animacy do not bear up under comparison between (6.2e) and (6.2a). The ordering of these samples is probably best related to the relative lateness of the collection (1919). At this stage, the influence of English grammatical patterns is likely to have been strong – especially due to the direct translation-style elicitation. It will be clear from §5.2 that there is a complete lack of any noun morphology marking subject or agent in the Narungga sources, although an ergative marker would be expected on the basis of other Thura-Yura languages, including close relative Kaurna (cf. S&H). Because of this, the clearest way forward available was to instantiate a fixed word order base, using SOV. The advantage of this decision is clearly shown in (6.3e) below, in which the fixed word order assumption is the key to disambiguation. Although an ergative/absolutive distinction is available in the pronoun paradigm, the SOV order is taught as essentially fixed for all transitive sentences, with the implications of the ergative for word order as an advanced topic for language learning. Encouraged by the ‘travel sentences’ in the sources (such as (6.1f)), Narungga speaker/learners also extend the general SOV principle to sentences involving indirect objects, goals of motion (in object position), and statives in verb position: 2 Past tense in the source translation. 88 Chapter 6 (6.3) Current examples (Project) a. Anggi-yidja gabidja. woman+small thirsty ‘The girl is thirsty.’ b. Ngadjalana minna dhawara. my.daughter eyes big ‘My daughter’s eyes are big.’ c. Ngadlu Nharangga warra wangga-dja. 1PL Narungga languagespeak-PRES ‘We’re speaking Narungga language.’ d. Nharangga warra wardli-nu bamma-dja. Narungga language home-ALL come-PRES ‘The Narungga language is coming home.’ e. Anggi-yidja yarli-yidja bunggu-ri? woman+small man+small hit-PST3 ‘Did the girl hit the boy?’ Teaching of SOV is strongly linked to discussions of language loss, explaining the fixed word order as an innovation and the reasons for this choice. Despite the pragmatic necessity of this diversion from the historical language, the fact that an SOV rather than SVO order is used undoubtedly functions as an iconic difference from English syntax. Teaching of this and other structures focuses on a set of templates (cf. Wanganeen & Eira 2006), and on emphasising the broader (and more readily accessible) principle ‘verb last’. A strict SOV implementation can be used to great effect in the interests of both salience and stylistics. The following extract from the Dedication in the Narungga dictionary (NAPA 2006) makes use of poetic line breaks to emphasise the repetition of warra ‘language’: (6.4) Warra miya wandi-dja, language sleep-PRES Walli bamma-ri. NEG go-PST Ngallu-gu dhura graadi-graadidja, 1PL-POSS person proud+proud Warra walli barluna. language NEG dead 3 See §5.2.2 for explanation of this loan from Nukunu sources. Syntax 89 Warra, Nharangga banggara gungaradja. language Narungga country born ‘The language was sleeping/It was not lost/Our people are proud/The language has survived/The language is born of Narungga land’ (NAPA 2006, free translation as per source.) 6.2.2 Phrase structure Noun phrases involving determiners, quantifiers, numbers, possessives (both alienable and inalienable) and adjectives are all attested in the historical sources: (6.5) Gudju gadli. other dog ‘Give me em dog.’ (Source trans. – McE) ngarga wardli crowd house ‘a lot of “wurlies”, a camp’ (Source trans. – N&R/B) burlayi nhibu two Narungga/Nunga person ‘two Narungga/Nunga people’ (N&R/B) ngallu-gu bindira 1PL-POSS white.man ‘our man’ (Source trans. – L&GE/J) nhinni anggi 2SG woman ‘your woman’ (L&GE/J) gardinya manggara fine girl ‘a fine girl’ (N&R/B) One negated predicate is recorded, and one modified adjective: (6.6) a. Walli wamba-na. NEG know-NOM ‘I don’t know.’ (Khn) b. Marna warlda much heat ‘Very hot’ (N&R/B) 90 Chapter 6 The order for all phrase types recorded is overwhelmingly MODIFIER b HEAD, with possible exceptions analysable as compound formations (cf. §5.5).4 Current examples directly following these models include: (6.7) Nharangga dhura Narungga people ‘Narungga people’ Walli barlu-na. NEG die-NOM ‘We have survived.’ marni+marni ngabara, gawana, gammidi, manggadi many+many aunt uncle MoMo FaMo ‘many Aunties, Uncles and Grandmothers’ Although unfortunately no combinations of noun modifiers are attested in the historical records, a very few experiments in longer phrases are now beginning to appear: (6.8) a. Guranna Marni Wilba good healthy5 daylight ‘Good Health Day’ (name for a local forum to encourage healthy living) b. Barni Nharangga dhura yarda here6 Narungga person land ‘This is the Narungga people’s land’ Extensions to the recorded phrase structure such as these are constructed by overlaying successive two-word structures evidenced, such as ADJ+NOUN, POSS.NOUN + POSSESSED (6.8b), as well as correlating well with accustomed English usage. The principle that a structure sourced from a larger number of inputs to the language is more likely to take hold (cf. Zuckermann 2006 and elsewhere) favours the continued use and development of such structures. They could usefully be expanded on in future development of the language. Conjoined phrases Historical sources provide little if any data on conjoining at any level. There are two marginal candidates, one apparently idiomatic: 4 It is possible that the HEAD+MODIFIER structure evidenced in the descriptive compounds in examples (5.20-5.23) is the older order, with possible implications for syntactic order (as in other languages, such as Pitjantjatjara). If this is the case, then the order described in this chapter may be a relatively recent tendency, following contact with English. (Thanks to John Giacon for pointing this out.) 5 Recorded historically as ‘body fat’, and a possible variant marna as ‘big, fat; plenty, many’, this word (following the model of Kaurna) now covers a variety of senses with the general meaning of health and prosperity. 6 Originally ‘to/towards here’, the meaning of barni has been extended for lack of a separate word recorded for this meaning. Syntax 91 (6.9) Barni bamma-ni dhiga-ni. to.here come-IMP sit-IMP ‘Come here, sit down.’ (LE/T) Garnarra banyi dhargarri manya. north.wind today tomorrow rainy ‘North wind today – tomorrow, rainy.’ (LE/T, L&GE/J) This simple juxtaposition strategy has been the only recourse of speaker/learners – although an examination of some well-used structures from Project-developed texts indicates the possibility of complex constructions developing: (6.10) a. Anggi, gunganya wawa-nu bamma-dja, guuya manggu-dja. woman, child beach-ALL go-PRES fish pick.up-PRES ‘The women and children go to the beach and fish.’ b. Warldalu, yardli yuggu manggu-dja gayinbara manggu-dja. hot.time, man boat carry.off-PRES butterfish pick.up-PRES ‘In the hot season the men take boats and get butterfish.’ In both these examples, there is a clear repetition of the basic learned O(IND)V structure. This could be understood simply as juxtaposition, or as a more complex construction, as the second clause is more closely dependent on the first than in the historical examples, having a relationship of purpose as well as time. Clearer examples of complex constructions will be discussed under §6.5. Conjoined noun phrases using the juxtaposition principle are also now in evidence, such as: (6.11) Marni-marni ngabara, gawana, gammidi, manggadi, dhammali, Many+many aunt uncle MoMo FaMo MoFa mallabi barlu-na. FaFa die-PRES ‘Many aunties, uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers have passed away.’ 6.3 Questions 6.3.1 Wh- questions The historical sources record a few instances of location and direction questions: (6.12) Gadli wardli wanna? dog house where ‘Where em dog?’ (McE. Translation as per source) 92 Chapter 6 Nhibu-ri wanna? Aboriginal person-PL where ‘Where are the Narungga/Nunga people?’ (McE) Nhinni wandi bamma-dja? 2SG where go-PRES ‘Where are you going?’ (N&R/B) Given the consistency of this with a basic SOV pattern, the form of Wh- questions in the renewed language has been generalised to a further extension to this basic pattern: S INT V. (6.13) Tania wanna bamma? Tania where go ‘Where did Tania go?’ Nhinni anni manggu-dja? 2SG what hold-PRES ‘What have you got?’ 6.3.2 Yes/No questions There are no Yes/No questions recorded in the historical sources. The structure used by Elders in the 1980s is identical in form to the corresponding statement: (6.14) Nhinni bamma-dja? 2SG go-PRES ‘Are you going?’ (Anon. 1987) Yes/No questions in the renewed language, then, are taught as distinguished from declaratives simply by rising intonation: (6.15) Nhinni gadli manggu-dja? 2SG dog hold-PRES ‘Have you got a dog?’7 Guunga nharga Nharangga warra wamba-dja? child mob Narungga languageknow-PRES ‘Are the kids learning lots of Narungga words?’ Anggi-yidja yarli-yidja bunggu-ri? woman+small boy+small hit-PST ‘Did the girl hit the boy?’ 7 Manggudja is used here, and also in (6.13), in the context of a card game in which the ‘dog’ is on a card held by the player. Syntax 93 The hidden usefulness of this is that it encourages people to emphasise speech rather than writing, as intonation here is crucial to understanding. 6.4 Imperatives All imperatives in the historical sources are of the structure OBJ V. Variations include the use of an indirect object or other oblique argument (cf. §6.2.1), and the occurrence of the verb with and without suffixation (cf. §5.4.1): (6.16) Badja nagu-ru. snake look-IMP ‘Look at the snake.’ (N&R/B) Baga yunggu. tobacco give ‘Give [me some] tobacco.’ (N&R/B) Barni bamma-ni dhiga-ni. to.here come-IMP sit-IMP ‘Come here, sit down.’ (LE/T) This has fitted in smoothly with a basic 'verb last' teaching principle. Examples from teaching and other current contexts include: (6.17) Barrdu gamba-ni. meat cook-IMP ‘Cook the meat.’ Yuringgu-ru! listen-IMP ‘Listen!’ Guunga manggu-ru. baby hold-IMP ‘Hold the baby.’ Guuya-nu bamma-ni! fish-ALL/PURP go-IMP ‘Go fish!’ (Part of a card game popular with adult learners and children alike.) 6.5 Complex constructions and the limits of juxtaposition As stated above, at the start of the intensive phase of language renewal, there was no model for constructing complex sentences available other than simple juxtaposition – a problem often noted by speaker/learners. The principle of juxtaposition has been creatively extended in the renewed language, but rapidly reaches the limits of 94 Chapter 6 comprehensibility. It also requires speaker/learners to analyse their intended utterance into sequences of more basic component sequences, which adds an extra complication to translation from English: (6.18) a. Ngadjalana Darwin-gga wandi-dja, barni Dharldiwarldu-nu My.daughter Darwin-LOC sleep-PRES to.here Pt.Victoria-ALL bamma-dja. come-PRES ‘My daughter, who lives in Darwin, is coming to Port Victoria.’ b. Gawana gubilla-ga wani-dja. Uncle drink-havingfall-PRES ‘Uncle is falling down drunk.’ The idea which eventually became (6.18a) was originally expressed in a more cohesive unit (in English), as ‘My daughter is coming down from Darwin to Port Victoria’. While this may have been possible to translate more directly with the availability of a wider range of affixes, as it was the speaker had to rethink her idea in syntactic terms. As indicated in (6.10a and b), some instances of juxtaposition show closer semantic relations than those in the sources (6.9). Recurring structures include graadidja b V ‘proud [to] V’ or graadidja b S ‘proud [that] S’: (6.19) a Ngadlu-gu burlga graadidja ngadlu warra wanggadja. 1PL-POSS Elder proud8 1PL language speak-PRES ‘Our Elders are honoured that we can now speak language’ b. Ngallu-gu graadidja wanggadja Ngallugu warra walli 1PL-POSS proud speak-PRES 1PL-POSS language NEG barludja. be.dead-PRES ‘We are proud to say “Our language is not dead”.’ (NAPA Forthcoming b. Spelling and translation as per source.) Example (6.19b) has particular potential for ongoing language development as it provides a model for a speech verb complement. These are critical innovations as they begin to allow for the creation of complex sentences, which are entirely absent from historical sources. While it may be objected that both sentential complement structures exemplified here are (possibly unconsciously) modelled on English, the significant conceptual shift to understand here is that sentences such as these rapidly become the models for further text creation. This means that speaker/learners are thinking and adapting in terms of their developing language resources, rather than in terms of relexifying English. 8 Recorded (by contemporary Elders) as ‘vain, stuck-up’, Tania Wanganeen has instituted the less stigmatised meaning for this word: ‘proud’. Syntax 95 Recent formal speeches also show an interesting developing use of two verb forms to create complement clause structures – one modelled on English, one not. First, the present tense V-dja is reanalysed as a non-tensed verb, comparable to English V-ing: (6.20) Ngadlu marna badja wargu-ni yarda. 1PL many champion walk-PRES land ‘We have many champions walking the path.’ (NAPA Forthcoming b.) Secondly, the bare stem is treated as a non-tensed verb where English would use a ‘to V’ construction. Graadidja ‘proud’ again figures strongly in some of these examples (cf. also §7.3), while in others a purposive function is evident: (6.21) … graadidja yuri barna-gu wambana manggwidja. proud hear 3PL-POSS know-NOM carry-PRES …proud to know that their knowledge has been found.’ Garri ngadlu bamma-dja ngallu-gu wamba-na yunggu. today 1PL come-PRES 1PL-POSS know-NOM give/receive ‘Today we come to share our knowledge.’ (NAPA Forthcoming b. Translation as per source.) Given the obvious need to expand the range of syntactic possibilities from that represented by the sources, it is highly likely that innovations such as the above will be a target for language development planning in the near future. It may also be decided at a later stage to revisit what is available through cognate languages as a source of additional morphosyntactic material which, while not directly evidenced for Narungga, is at least closer to home than English. As noted in §1.2, however, distinction from related languages is also an important factor for language development decisions. 6.6 Adverbial phrases While there is a distinct lack of adverbial phrases in the historical sources other than in the idiom Garnarra banyi, dhargarri manya (cf. example 6.11), the logic of scope suggests that a clause-initial or clause-final position is appropriate. (See §4.4.1 for discussion of morphology forming/identifying adverbs.) In general, current speaker/learners seem to prefer the former option for temporal AdvPs and the latter for spatial AdvPs: (6.22) Banyi dhammali dhilba-nu bamma-dja. morning MoFa south-ALL go-PRES ‘In the morning grandfather is going to the south.’ Warlda-lu, yardli yuggumanggu-dja gayinbara manggu-dja. hot.time-ADV, man boat carry.off-PRES butterfish pick.up-PRES ‘In the hot season the men take boats and get butterfish.’ 96 Chapter 6 Ngayidjali wandi-ri wawa-ngga. my.father sleep-PST beach-LOC ‘My father was sleeping at the beach.’ Ngadlu badja ngarga Centrals-ga. 1PL deadly mob Centrals-LOC9 ‘We’re the winning team at Centrals.’10 Given the lack of extended texts in the sources, together with a reduced range of morphological options, the syntax of Narungga may be the area displaying greatest diversion from the historical language. However, while English provides an obvious default source for transfer of structures, it is clear that speaker/learners are also maintaining iconic distinctions from English – most prominently the verb-final principle (cf. §8.2 for a summary of distinctive grammatical elements reclaimed). In Chapter 7, I discuss how in the process of developing new texts on the basis of previous ones, people are building language – and community-internal discursive traditions, which at the same time develops the syntactic resources of the language as their confidence and knowledge expands. 9 The translator of this song has reduced the suffix -ngga in the interests of ease of pronunciation. 10 Note that this final example is of a complement rather than adjunct PP. 7 Discourse In closing, it will be useful to describe briefly some aspects of the emerging discourse of the renewed language. Under this term ‘discourse’ fall two main areas for consideration. Firstly, I will discuss some aspects of the communicative functions of the everyday language – its variations for communicative purposes and its phatic components. Secondly, it is already possible to preview the gradual, community-internal process of building up traditions of language on previous language and previous functions of language. This intertextual development is of immense importance to the life of a language, forming a significant part of how any speech community understands its own discourse, and comes to know what is appropriate to say, on what occasions. 7.1 Register Distinctions of register are both discussed and practised in the Narungga Project group. This encompasses lexical choice, complexity of phonological and morphophonemic alternatives, and syntactic completeness. Factors conditioning selection include formality of occasion, age of speaker, whether children are listening, and whether the addressee is Aboriginal. Lexical choice is a variable promoted particularly by senior members of the Project group. Their focus is on: Avoidance of potentially offensive words in the hearing of children and use of ‘children’s language’, such as ngammi ‘mother’ rather than ngayidjayi, or garda ‘faeces’ rather than gudna, Use of alternatives deemed more formal when addressing non-Aboriginal people (e.g. avoidance of ‘children’s language’), and particularly Lexical selection for formal speeches. This includes a preference for words more clearly identifiable as Narungga, such as bindira ‘white person’ rather than gunya (thought by Gladys Elphick to have come into use at Point Pearce with the relocation of people from Poonindie mission – Ellis et al. 1964), as well as use of alternatives deemed more formal. Phonological and morphophonemic alternations are discussed in §2.4 and §2.6 respectively. These are being taught as overt distinctions according to formality level, although less complex alternatives are also offered to individuals finding difficulties with pronouncing a given word. Speech situations suggested to be formal include public speaking, speaking to someone in an official capacity, and speaking to a non-Aboriginal person. Writing is also treated as formal, in that the spelling of the more complex 97 98 Chapter 7 alternative is used regardless of individual pronunciation. (For a more detailed explanation of this including justification of exceptions cf. §3.4.) These alternatives in summary are as follows: Table 7.1: Phonological alternations according to formality of setting Formal pronunciation Informal Example: Example: Standard pronunciation formal informal spelling d-cluster (historically simple nasal or /ga la/ /ga a/ The question of syntactic completeness is highly variable according to individual choice in a given situation. Formally complete sentences are required in the adult classroom except in the context of conversation practice. In the latter case and outside the classroom, individuals are encouraged to decide what can be omitted without detriment to comprehensibility. This includes learners’ preference for communicating with single words accompanied with gestures rather than resorting to English. In schools, more confident teachers report consciously selecting truncated forms as a model of appropriate conversation style – for instance, omitting referents already introduced, or using stem forms of verbs where tense is retrievable from context. As indicated under §3.4.1, while formalised statements of conditions for register selection such as the above are useful for teaching purposes, perhaps even more importantly they also provide a structure for accepting variation. Variation may occur as part of the process of acquiring language, but also as a symbol of recognition of a particular Elder’s or family’s handed-down knowledge. What is crucial about all the structured options for variation built into the analysis at phonological, morphological and syntactic levels is that the right of judgment is handed over to the speaker/learner. In this sense, the identification of more or less distinct characteristics of different registers is always secondary to that fundamental principle of language reclamation: that it necessarily entails the return to the heritage community of not only knowledge, but authority in their language (cf. Eira 2007). 7.2 Conversational and other formulae A number of semi-fixed expressions have been developed for use in contexts such as greetings and speech openings. One or two were recorded prior to the present project, and some ideas were borrowed from local varieties of Aboriginal English and/or practices learned from the Kaurna revival. A representative selection follows: Discourse 99 Table 7.2: Formulaic expressions Expression Free translation Notes a. Nhinni/Nhiwi/Nha marni? How are you? Equivalent used in Kaurna 2SG/DU/PL health b. Nhinni marni? How are you? Equivalent used in Kaurna 2SG health Marni-ayi, nhinni? I’m good, and you? health-1SG 2SG Marni-ayi. I’m good. health-1SG c. Marni bamma-ni. Farewell. Appropriate particularly health travel-IMP when addressee is leaving by car. d. Marni (Nharangga banggara) Welcome to (name Expanding from the health (Narungga country) of place or event) common use of Nha marni to mean ‘Welcome’, this idiomatic phrase is becoming standard as part of an opening speech. e. Marni gungga-na wilba. Happy birthday. Calqued on English. health born-NOM day f. Ngayidju midji… My name is… Some have discussed coding midji as inalienable instead. The phrase came into use before this concept was addressed. g. Ngayi Nharangga anggi/ I am a Narungga Together with (a.), (b.) 1SG Narungga woman/ (woman/man). I and (f.) forms a common yardli. Ngayi Nharangga am speaking formal self-introduction, or Narungga. opening for longer speech. man. 1SG Narungga warra wangga-dja. language speak-PRES h. Dhindu garri-dja. The sun is rising. An early favourite, this is sun rise-PRES used in some households as a ritual morning expression. i. Guranna banyiwarda Good morning Calqued on English, an good morning alternative to Dhindu garridja that I have heard more frequently in the last year or so. 100 Chapter 7 Expression Free translation Notes j. Ngayi nhinni yunggu. Thanks. Developed in a workshop, 1SG 2SG receive this expression makes use of the bi-directional meaning of yunggu ‘give, receive’, to imply an exchange. Other pronouns can of course be substituted (e.g. Ngayi nha yunggu ‘Thanks, everyone’). It is usual now to omit the second pronoun: Ngayi yunggu. k. Barni ngallu-gu wardli; This is our home; A more or less standard here 1PL-POSS house component of speeches for barni ngallu-gu yarda this is our land various occasions, adaptable also for speeches here 1PL-POSS land given on other people’s lands. 7.3 Discursive traditions In this final section I will examine the traditions of linguistic practice developing in the renewed Narungga language. In the particular situation of language renewal, building language on previous language is crucial both for the culturo-linguistic life of the community and for the development of language-internal patterns of grammar and stylistics. Building language in this way has facilitated a reorientation in people’s thinking as they construct new texts – moving away from an assumed practice of starting in English and translating, to thinking instead about existing texts in Narungga on their own terms, and adapting and extending language from these.1 This new practice also sets in motion a rolling expansion of the resources of the renewed language. In the set of examples to follow can be seen a perpetual adaptation and extension of available speeches and related texts. The value of this is understood at an overt level, so that a published book of speeches is now being finalised for just this purpose (NAPA Forthcoming b). The speech genre is a very important one in contemporary Aboriginal culture, especially in cross-cultural contexts. Speeches welcoming guests to country, or conversely acknowledging whose land one is on, have become particularly significant as a respect tradition. Since the increase in public awareness of Narungga language with the growth of the revival project, it has become more common to invite Narungga people to give welcome speeches for official occasions for local government and other broader community events. This is appreciated as a move towards greater recognition and inclusion, and is also taken as an opportunity to build up public awareness still further by giving such speeches in Narungga. 1 See also the formulaic method described in Amery 2000, in which the return of community-internal discourse tradition building is achieved by the building up of ‘preformed chunks’ of language. Discourse 101 The extracts below are drawn from three extended texts, representing different speakers or writers, different levels of language knowledge, and a span of five years. Two are introduction speeches, and the third is a written introduction (dedication) to a book. Spelling and free translations are as in the original documents (with some hyphens added to clarify affixation), and glosses are mostly by word, according to the sense intended. Lines are numbered for ease of reference. Firstly, (7.1) presents most of a very early speech created by Uncle Dookie for the launch of the Project at Point Pearce at the end of 2001. This was the first extended speech that anyone had written. It is worth quoting at length because, as we will see, it became very influential in the development of discursive traditions for formal presentations. (7.1) 1. Ngaitju mitji Kevin O’Loughlin my name Kevin O’Loughlin 2. Ngai wangga-dja Narungga wara I speak-PRES Narungga language 3. Ngai Boorkooyana-dja I Point.Pearce-person.from 4. Barni ngaitju banggara, barni ngaitju wardly here my land here my home 5. Ngai bama-dja with Narungga wara, Narungga wampana I travel-PRES (with) Narungga language Narungga knowledge 6. Ngai Narungga yardly I Narungga man 7. Narungga banggara goonggarra-dja Narungga wara Narungga country born-PRES Narungga language 8. Angki Galadri-nu bama-dja. Marni balara. Gootjoo Yadri-nu woman Galadri-ALL go-PRES many mullet other Yadri-ALL bama-dja. go-PRES 9. Manya-lu, yardly bama-dja Galadri-nu, Moonguri-nu, cold.season man go-PRES Galadri-ALL Moonguri-ALL Giddyalpa-nu. Giddyalpa-ALL 102 Chapter 7 10. Marni gainbara, marni noodly. many butterfish many mulloway 11. Marni-marni ngabara, gawana, gamidi, manggadi barluna many+many aunt uncle MoMo FaMo dead 12. Yarri ngadlu yooringa-dja barnugu wampana today we listen-PRES their knowledge 13. Thankyou adjiga. (thankyou) friend 1 My name is (name)/2 I am speaking Narungga Language/3 I am from Point Pearce/4 This is my country and this is my home./5 I am travelling with the Narungga Language and Narungga culture/6 I am a Narungga man./7 The Narungga Language is born of the Narungga land./…/8 The women are going to Galadri - there's a lot of mullet. Others go to Yadri./…/9 In the cold season, the men go to Galadri, Moonguri and Giddyalpa,/10 there's a lot of butterfish and mulloway/…/11 Many aunties, uncles and grandmothers have passed away./12 We listen to their wisdom today./13 Thankyou friends. The speech above establishes three main components for the genre: (i) Self-introduction. In most contexts in which speeches such as this are used, the speaker is well-known to the audience. The self-introduction then has a symbolic and formal, rather than informative, function, and serves to highlight and assert the speaker’s relationship to language and land. (ii) Acknowledgement of land. This takes the form of a ritual recitation of features of the cycles of traditional life on Narungga land. The section continues beyond what is quoted here, to men’s responsibilities, and activities specific to other times of the year. (iii) Close. The close has two elements – acknowledgement of Elders past and present, and acknowledgement of the audience. Uncle Dookie’s speech is translated by a relexification process, substituting a Narungga word for each English word in the sentence. Some English words are left untranslated – notably the various forms of ‘be’ as verb or auxiliary – but some are left in where no Narungga word was available at the time, as in lines 5 ‘with’ and 13 ‘Thankyou’. The sentences remain in English word order, with the exception of line 7, literally ‘Narungga land give birth to Narungga language’. The word LE/T (7.2) 1. Nharangga warra wardli-nu bamma-dja. Narungga language home-ALL come- PRES 2. Ngallugu dhura graadi-graadidja, our person proud 3. Warra walli barluna. language NEG dead 4. Warra, Nharangga banggara gungara-dja. language Narungga country born-PRES 5. Ngallugu warra, our language 6. Ngallugu banggara, our country 104 Chapter 7 7. Ngallugu wardli. our home 8. Ngallugu warra, buggi-buggilu, our language yesterday+yesterday 9. Dhura marn-marna badja bindjaru. person many+many champion2 make-IMP 1 The Narungga language is coming home/2 Our people are proud,/3 The language has survived./4 The language is born of Narungga land./5 This is our language,/6 Our land,/7 Our home./8 Our language and heritage/9 Makes our people strong. (or ‘let our language and heritage make our people strong’)/... This is a poem, not a speech, so is not subject to the same content requirements as Uncle Dookie’s speech above, although as an introductory piece it does share some commonality with an introductory speech. The legacy of Uncle Dookie’s speech is immediately evident in the poem, with the by-now standard inclusion of Warra, Nharangga banggara gungaradja/Ngallugu warra/Ngallugu banggara/Ngallugu wardli ‘The language is born of the Narungga land/(this is) our language/our land/our home’ (lines 4-7). It will be noticed, however, that this writer has experimented with word order beyond the model of the 2001 text. In the first place, line 4 (as well as the rest of the poem) is now ordered according to the verb-final principle as taught. Secondly, similarly to the treatment of warra ‘language’ as noted in §6.2.1, ngallugu ‘our’ is placed prominently at the beginning of several lines, demonstrating a consideration of the poetic genre and the notion of foregrounding elements of the sentence according to desired emphasis. The poem also exemplifies some new set phrases that can be seen frequently in formal texts, such as line 1 Nharangga warra wardlinu bammadja ‘The Narungga language is coming home’, and the emergence of the graadi-graadidja ‘proud’ sequences favoured in later speeches (cf. §6.5). Both graadi-graadidja and buggi-buggilu demonstrate new implementation of the reduplication principle, the former for emphasis and the latter encoding a non- compositional meaning, ‘heritage’. It will also be noted that the orthography as described in Chapter 3 is now in use, in contrast to (7.1), in which the spelling is consistent at word level, but different graphemes can be found for the same phoneme (e.g. (7.3) 1. Nha marni 2PL health 2 Or ‘deadly’, in the Nunga English sense. Discourse 105 2. Nharangga banggara-nu. Narungga country-ALL 3. Barni Nharangga dhura yarda; here3 Narungga person land 4. Barni ngallugu wardli. here our home 5. Ngallugu wardli marni-marni yardlu. our home much+much sea 6. Yardlu, yarda ngallugu mayi yunggu-dja. sea land our food give-PRES 7. Wardla, yardli yuggu manggwi-dja, gayinbara manggwi-dja. hot.time man boat hold-PRES butterfish hold-PRES 8. Ngadlu graadidja ngallugu buggi-buggilu marn-marna badja. we proud our heritage much+much champion 9. Ngadlu wambana manggwi-dja Wambana Nhagudja we knowledgehold-PRES knowledge+see 10 Ngallugu adjayi, adjali, yunga, yaggana, ngabara, gawana, our mother father brothersister aunt uncle 11. gammidi, manggadi, dhammali, mallabi manggwi-dja, MoMo FaMo FaFa MoFa hold-PRES 12. Mambaliya, barluna, live dead 13. Badja Wambana Nhagudjabindjani-dja champion knowledge+see make-PRES 14 Ngadlu, ngallugu guunga-ri. us our child-PL 15. Ngayi yunggu. I receive 3 This is a further extension of barni, originally ‘to/toward here’, and in this context taking on a quasi- demonstrative pronoun function. 106 Chapter 7 …/1 Welcome/2 to Narungga country/3 This is the Narungga people’s land/4 This is our home/5 The sea surrounds our home/6 The sea and the land provides our food/7 In the hot season the men take boats and catch butterfish/…/8 We are proud our culture and heritage is strong/…/9 We have gathered knowledge from written records/10 collected from our mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, aunties, uncles/11 grandmothers, grandfathers/12 both living and those that have now passed on/13 to produce these wonderful resources/14 for us, our children/…/15 Thankyou. Significant development in both creativity and language-specific construction is evident by the time of this speech, but the tradition begun with the earliest speeches remains apparent. The overall structure of the text is basically the same: self-introduction, acknowledgement of land, acknowledgement of Elders and audience – but now it is also possible to include more content specific to the event of the day (lines 9-14). Some actual phrases from the speech in 2001 are used, but with slight variations (lines 3, 4 and 7). In addition, some of the ideas from that early speech have been taken up and translated into new contexts, such as the listing of relatives in lines 10-11. Innovations from (7.2) can also be seen, particularly the increasing use of graadidja ‘proud’ and the new word buggi- buggilu ‘heritage’ (line 8), as well as other set phrases established in speeches not represented here (e.g. Ngayi yunggu, line 15 and Nharangga warra wardlinu bammadja, not reproduced above). This speech reflects a number of the developments in syntax emerging in recent times, making maximal use of the possibilities of juxtaposition (cf. §6.5). An additional graadidja structure can be seen in line 8: graadidja + S ‘proud that S’. The extract also shows that lexical development is continuing as need arises. Note in lines 9 and 13 Wambana Nhagudja ‘written resources’ (lit. knowledge+see), the extended use of badja to mean ‘strong’ (line 8), bindjanidja ‘make’ > ‘produce’ and manggwidja, recorded as ‘hold, pick up, carry, carry off’, for a variety of senses in this semantic field including ‘gather’, ‘take’, ‘catch’ (lines 7, 9 and 10). The new conventional phrasing marni ‘welcome’ + place is also in evidence, as explained in Table 7.2 – here with an allative suffix: banggara-nu (cf. §5.2.3). The extract also indicates a number of grammatical items that the language could usefully develop in the coming phases, in the interests of comprehensibility. In line 9, the semantic role of Wambana Nhagudja ‘resources’ is not clear, but could be made so by the addition of an appropriate suffix. Similarly, in line 14, a purposive or benefactive would clarify the role of ngadlu, ngallugu guungari ‘us, our children’. The development process described above offers a counter to the model of language learning that requires speaker/learners to gain maximal grasp of the grammar before constructing sentences and larger texts. Instead, this community has developed their language and their linguistic skills in one integrated process. It is possible that this approach has created the space for people’s confidence to develop. It is certain, from the outcomes to date, that it allows for community development of norms of communication that could not have been created by an outgroup linguist. 8 Conclusions: authenticity and change in the language revival process In the context of language revival, communities and linguists alike are concerned about the degree to which the renewed language is based on the pre-colonisation language as opposed to English. People speaking/learning Narungga often encourage each other to ‘get rid of that English thinking’ in regard to word order, affixation, creation of new words, and use of sentence templates and models as opposed to relexification strategies. Within linguistics, the question of the extent to which such a goal is possible, let alone evidenced, is a strong feature of our discussions about the value of language revival efforts. This question, in other words, becomes definitional for us. At the close of a book devoted entirely to documenting, and thereby validating, a language of revival, I feel it is relevant both to raise a number of possible counter- arguments to this implicit definition, and to summarise the linguistic achievements of the Narungga language revival effort so far in terms of (re)establishing non-English structures and principles in the practice of and approach to the language. 8.1 What is a language of revival? Firstly, it has to be said that measuring authenticity against the linguistic features of the pre-colonisation language amounts to an application of rules not required of continuously- spoken languages. But the reasons we require a revival language to be exempt from the possibility of change warrant further consideration that goes beyond the scope of this book. Is the kind of change evidenced in language revival different in type from that evidenced in continuously-spoken languages? Is there a tacitly-agreed necessity to reinstate what was taken away, precisely as it was at that time, before it is really possible to move on? Is there an uninterrogated subtext about Aboriginal culture belonging in the past, similar to the subtext made visible in the museums of Melbourne and Canberra, which surprise us by exhibiting modern western artefacts and images of colonists alongside Aboriginal artefacts and images of people of the time? Whatever the answers, the questions are clearly not just linguistic. Working with a number of different Aboriginal communities doing language revival, I find, not surprisingly, a mixture of responses to the question of change, sometimes by one and the same person. Knowing exactly what there once was is important. Honouring and restoring as much as possible of the ancient continuity of people’s language is important. But validation of Aboriginal culture and language as alive and vital in a twenty-first century society is also important. Seeing that the nearest available model of a living language, English, changes and borrows all the time, gives people confidence in this 107 108 Chapter 8 feature of linguistic vitality as applied to their own language. Understanding the linguistic fluidity of a multilingual society also allows people to relax puristic goals, seeing borrowing and adaptation to different linguistic situations as culturally authentic, as well as being a useful, high-level linguistic skill. But perhaps most importantly, both communities and linguists focussing on language revival work can come very quickly to embrace the notion of a staged or ongoing process of reclamation. I myself am coming to the position that this may be definitional for revival languages. This is because people doing this work have to hold in tandem two goals in apparent conflict: people need the languages back right now, and at the same time they need to be confident that what is being returned is the real thing. The only way I know to address these apparently opposing urgencies is for communities to use, fully and proudly, as much as they know right now, and at the same time to continue to research, collate, analyse and make informed and authorised decisions on their language, to edge it, bit-by- bit, closer to the language of their ancestors – or, perhaps more accurately, or even better, closer to what the language of their ancestors could have become had it been allowed to continue through the centuries of social change as a fully-spoken language constantly adapting to communicative and conceptual needs. Certainly this book shows a group of people doing just that. Narungga was not brought to some target of ideal completeness of analysis before the people were encouraged to start learning and using it. Rather, the development of the language was inextricably built into the using of it. We have seen in Chapter 7 in particular the incremental development of the Narungga language in terms of orthography, lexicon, and semantic, grammatical and discursive function. There have been conscious decisions along the way to prioritise iconic language features which are seen as carrying cultural load, such as the alienable- inalienable distinction, and to background other features seen as potentially offputting to new speakers, such as bound pronouns. More advanced speakers lead the community in establishing successive elements of grammatical and semantic structures. Similar patterns of development can be seen in other language groups, whether by means of deeper analysis by a linguist who then presents their new findings to an already-emerging speech community, or a conscious decision by a reference group to move to a given ‘next stage’ when they feel their community is ready, or some other procedural structure. So my point in essence is this: Since it is clear, if only by the amount of productivity and visibility of language use, that people are currently reviving their languages, then our question is not whether but what? What is a revival language? Is it a new type of language? Is it relatable more to other types of ‘new’ languages, such as pidgins and creoles, or to other situations of language contact and change? What are its forms, patterns, tendencies, processes? How are the input sources of its speakers negotiated and balanced? What elements of the heritage language are more critical to linguistic identity, and on what grounds? It is my hope that this grammar goes some way towards addressing some of these questions in this new, interesting and important field of study. Beginning to understand some of the answers will allow us to understand more about what is possible in human language. The fact that this new area of knowledge and development of human capacity is necessarily led by the world’s dispossessed peoples creates multiple layers to the endeavour: making space in the academy for learning from this process simultaneously makes space for ways of knowing and doing that have traditionally been only an object of research, not an intrinsic part of its ongoing theoretical and epistemological development. Conclusions 109 8.2 Narungga language reclamation: the story so far Having said all the above, it will nonetheless be of interest to summarise the grammatical elements of the renewed Narungga language which are recognisably not derived from English. These elements can be understood to be, firstly, consciously planned priorities for reclamation by Narungga people, followed by gradually introduced ‘innovations’ which then become available as models for other speaker/learners to incorporate into their own usage. Not all of the elements listed are fully reclaimed historical elements in their earlier form – for instance, the ‘d-cluster’ alternation is a contemporary realisation of an earlier prestopping feature. They are, however, clearly distinct from English, in ways that reflect the forms and/or functions of Narungga as indicated in historical sources, together with cognate comparisons in some cases. On the other hand, I have not listed here a number of items which are reclaimed, in the sense that people are learning them overtly as elements of the historical language, but which also have parallels in English and so can be seen as having dual inputs (such as the internal structure of NPs, or differentiated word choice for particular registers). For discussion of the details and basis for each item, see the sections cross-referenced. Table 8.1: Reclaimed grammatical elements in Narungga General Specific element reclaimed Cross- category reference to details 1. Phonology Consonant Laminodentals, especially the stop, and the nasal for §2.2.2 articulations advanced users. Retroflex articulations, especially the stop, or §2.3.2 representative ‘r-clusters’ in their place. Phonemic Three-way rhotic distinction: now alveolar approximant §2.2.2 distinctions and trill, and retroflex flap. Lack of voicing distinction, retained in the orthography, §2.3.1, §3.3 choices presented in the dictionary (NAPA 2006), and in free variation between speakers. Alternations Option of representative ‘d-clusters’ in place of §2.4.1 prestopping, with semi-predictable phonotactic and/or morphological conditioning. Option of alveolar nasal or lateral alternating with ‘r- §2.4.2 cluster’ (in place of retroflex). Option of nasal or lateral alternating with ‘y-cluster’ (in §2.4.3 place of palatal). Stress and Word-initial stress §2.5.1 phonotactics Initial / /, or at least / / by way of approach to / /. §2.5.2 Strong preference for final vowel, evidenced for example §2.5.2, §5.4.1 in the preference for –ni over –n (PRES/IMP) 110 Chapter 8 General Specific element reclaimed Cross- category reference to details 2. Lexicon Pronouns Dual number, and ergative/absolutive in the singular §4.3 Word Reduplication as a means of word formation, such as §5.5 formation buggi-buggilu (yesterday+yesterday-?) ‘heritage’ 3. Morpho-syntax Inalienable Taught as normal for body parts and kin terms, with §5.2.1 possession individual agency for other items based on ‘whether it’s like part of you’. Non- Plural marking treated as optional, depending on §5.2.2 required contextual disambiguation possibilities. elements Shift away Use of plural {s} largely eliminated in favour of §5.2.2 from plural/mass {ri}. English Looking to related languages for grammatical §5.4.1, §5.2.4 inputs morphemes such as PST (Nuk) or LOC (Kau). Affixation Allative, locative and imperative suffixes now in use, as §5.2.3, §5.2.4 well as a number with English parallels (such as the possessive). Some understanding of derivational affixes such as -na (NOM) and -ni (INCH) Basic SOV order. Although as a practical innovation this order §6.2.1, §6.4 structures is being taught as fixed, the order itself is recognisably not that of English, and is supported by both historical sources and cognate languages. Extended to related structures S Goal V and S INT V, and emphasised as ‘verb last’, which covers clauses with no overt subject such as imperatives. Yes/No questions distinguished from declaratives by §6.3.2 intonation, rather than through auxiliaries and movement. Syntactic Stem form of the verb as non-finite. §6.5 innovation 4. Discourse Intertextual A crucial part of the life of any community language, this §7.3 reference norm of language transmission and building is re- and emerging for the renewed language. development Genres Welcome/acknowledgement of land. A new basic §7.3 discursive structure in Narungga for what is presumably an old genre, with a number of semi-fixed elements developing. Appendix: texts A.1 Historical sentential examples Below is the complete set of sentential examples found in the historical sources as listed in the bibliography, with the exception of six examples for which we have been unable to ascertain as yet their exact meaning. The examples have been respelt in the contemporary system. The morphological gloss reflects the collector’s translation (see Chapter Five for discussion of apparent discrepancies). Single-word sentential examples (such as Bammadjayi ‘I am going’) have not been included. N&R/B Badja nhagu-ru. snake look-IMP ‘Look at the snake.’ Baga yunggu. tobacco give ‘Give (me) tobacco.’ Barni bamma-ni! to.here come-IMP ‘Come here!’ Buuya bindjani-dja. smoke make-IMP ‘Make a smoke.’ (to a number of people) Buuya bindja-ru. smoke make-IMP ‘Make a smoke.’ (to one person) Gardla bindjani-dja. fire make-IMP ‘Make a fire.’ (to a number of people) Gardla bindja-ru. fire make-IMP ‘Make a fire.’ (to one person) 111 112 Appendix: texts Dhindu dhiga-dja. sun set-PRES ‘The sun is setting.’ Dhindu garri-dja. sun rise-PRES ‘The sun is rising.’ [Ng]anggi barlu-dja. woman dead-PRES ‘The woman is dead.’ Ngayi-dju yardli barlu-dja. 1SG-POSS man dead-PRES ‘My husband is dead.’ Ngayi warrana. 1SG ill ‘I am ill.’ Nhinni warrana. 2SG ill ‘You are ill.’ Gagga walanggu-dja. head cover-PRES ‘I cover (my) head.’ Ngayi dhiga-dja. 1SG sit-PRES ‘I am sitting down.’ Ngayi wangga-ni. 1SG speak-PRES ‘I am speaking.’ Ngayi wangga-dja. 1SG speak-PRES ‘I am speaking [Narungga].’ Ngayidjali barni bamma-ni-ng. My.father to.here come-PRES?-3SG? ‘My father is coming here.’ Nhi, ngayi wangga-ni. yes 1SG speak-PRES ‘Yes, I am speaking.’ Appendix: texts 113 Nhinni dhiga-dja. 2SG sit-PRES ‘You are sitting down.’ Nhinni wangga-ni. 2SG speak-PRES ‘You are speaking.’ Gadli ngaddu bunggu-dja. dog 1SG hit-PRES ‘I am beating the dog.’ Badja ngaddu nhagu-dja. snake 1SG.ERG see-PRES ‘I see a snake.’ Gardla ngaddu bindjani-dja. fire 1SG.ERG make-PRES ‘I am making a fire.’ Nhibu manggu-dja barla. Nunga carry-PRES? wife ‘The Nunga man carried off (another man’s) wife.’ Nhindu bunggu-dja gadli. 2SG.ERG hit-PRES dog ‘You are beating the dog.’ Munda-nu bamma-ni-nu Moonta-ALL go-PRES?-2SG? ‘You are going to Moonta.’ Ngayi bamma-dja. 1SG come/go-PRES ‘I am coming/going.’ Ngayi bamma-dja Munda-n. 1SG go-PRES Moonta-ALL ‘I am going to Moonta.’ Ngunda bamma-ni. away go-IMP ‘Go away.’ Nhinni wandi bamma-dja? 2SG where go-PRES ‘Where are you going?’ 114 Appendix: texts Khn Walli wamba-na. NEG know-NOM ‘I don’t know.’ McE Gadli wardli wanna? dog house where ‘Where is the dog?’ (Translation from source.) Nhibu-ri wanna? Nunga-PL where ‘Where are the Narungga/Nunga people?’ Gudju gadli. other dog ‘(Give me) that dog.’ L&GE/J Ba, adjiga, bagga! look.out friend snake ‘Look out mate, there’s a snake!’ LE/T, L&GE/J Ngadli bamma. 2DU come/go ‘We two are coming/going.’ Ngayi bamma. 1SG come/go ‘I am coming/going.’ Nhinni [ng]anggi. 2SG woman ‘Your woman.’ (L&GE/J) ‘You are a woman.’ (LE/T) Garnarra banyi dhargarri manya. north.wind today tomorrow rainy ‘North wind today – tomorrow, rainy.’ LE/T Barni bamma-ni dhiga-ni. to.here come-IMP sit-IMP ‘Come here, sit down.’ Appendix: texts 115 Barabara wanarni dhindu gardlala gambani wild peaches (Eucarya acuminata) come sun light burn yarugarridja madidja dhindugardlala gambani. go round & gather them ? sun light burn ‘Wild peaches hanging in the trees, the sun will burn you (to the colour of fire), we will gather you (for food).’ (Gloss and translation as per source.) A.2 Recent sentential examples Selected by Tania Wanganeen from speeches and classroom conversations. A book of speeches is due for release in the near future which will provide some current, extended texts (NAPA Forthcoming b). Ngadlu barni garri. 1PL to.here today ‘We are here today.’ Nharangga dhura baddana wargu-ni. Narungga people all walk-PRES ‘Narungga people travelling together.’ Ngallu-gu warra wardli-nu manggu bamma-ni. 1PL-POSS language home-ALL carry.off come-IMP ‘Bring our language home.’ Barni ngallu-gu wardli. to.here 1PL-POSS house ‘This is our home.’ Ngayi burlayi gunganya. 1SG two child ‘I have two children.’ Ba! Dhulya barni bamma-dja. look.out police to.here come-PRES ‘Look out! Police coming.’ Nhinni wanna bamma-dja? 2SG where go-PRES? ‘Where are you going?’ Ngayi Munda-nu bamma-ri. 1SG Moonta-ALL go-PST ‘I went to Moonta.’ 116 Appendix: texts Ngayi Nharangga warra wangga-dja. 1SG Narungga language speak-PRES ‘I’m speaking Narungga language.’ Ngayi Nharangga anggi. 1SG Narungga woman ‘I’m a Narungga woman.’ Ngadjalana minna dhawara. my.daughter eyes big ‘My daughter’s eyes are big.’ Anggi-yidja garri-dja. woman+little rise-PRES ‘The girl is getting up.’ Ngayi dhidna mingga. 1SG foot sore ‘My foot is sore.’ Nhinni gadli manggu-dja? 2SG dog hold-PRES ‘Have you got a dog?’1 Ngadlu walli barlu-na. 1PL NEG dead-NOM ‘We have survived.’ 1 Said in the context of a card game in which the ‘dog’ card may be held by players. References Aikhenvald, Alexandra, 2007. ‘Grammars in contact: a cross-linguistic perspective’, in Alexandra Aikhenvald and R.M.W. Dixon (eds), Grammars in contact: a cross- linguistic typology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 1-66. Anon,1867. 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References 123 Zuckermann, Ghil’ad, 2006. ‘A new vision for Israeli Hebrew: Theoretical and practical implications of analyzing Israel's main languages as a semi-engineered Semito- European hybrid language’, Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 5/1:57-71. —— 2008. ‘“Realistic Prescriptivism”: The Academy of the Hebrew Language, its Campaign of “Good Grammar” and Lexpionage, and the Native Israeli Speakers’, Israel Studies in Language and Society 1. are commonly found in the sources at the start of a word, suggesting the dental. Although