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Dyirbal is an Australian Aboriginal language spoken in northeast Queensland by the Dyirbal people. In 2016, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that there were 8 speakers of the language. It is a member of the small Dyirbalic branch of the Pama–Nyungan family. It possesses many outstanding features that have made it well known among linguists.
The Indigenous languages of Australia number in the hundreds, the precise number being quite uncertain, although there is a range of estimates from a minimum of around 250 up to possibly 363. The Indigenous languages of Australia comprise numerous language families and isolates, perhaps as many as 13, spoken by the Indigenous peoples of mainland Australia and a few nearby islands. The relationships between the language families are not clear at present although there are proposals to link some into larger groupings. Despite this uncertainty, the Indigenous Australian languages are collectively covered by the technical term "Australian languages", or the "Australian family".
The Pama–Nyungan languages or Uthuru languages are the most widespread family of Australian Aboriginal languages, containing 306 out of 400 Aboriginal languages in Australia. The name "Pama–Nyungan" is a merism: it is derived from the two end-points of the range, the Pama languages of northeast Australia and the Nyungan languages of southwest Australia.
Mbabaram (Barbaram) is an extinct Australian Aboriginal language of north Queensland. It was the traditional language of the Mbabaram people. Recordings are held in the Audiovisual Archive of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. R. M. W. Dixon described his hunt for a native speaker of Mbabaram in his book Searching for Aboriginal Languages: Memoirs of a Field Worker. Most of what is known of the language is from Dixon's field research with speaker Albert Bennett.
Many Australian Aboriginal cultures have or traditionally had a manually coded language, a signed counterpart of their oral language. This appears to be connected with various speech taboos between certain kin or at particular times, such as during a mourning period for women or during initiation ceremonies for men, as was also the case with Caucasian Sign Language but not Plains Indian Sign Language, which did not involve speech taboo, or deaf sign languages, which are not encodings of oral language. There is some similarity between neighbouring groups and some contact pidgin similar to Plains Indian Sign Language in the American Great Plains.
The Kalkadoon are descendants of an Indigenous Australian tribe living in the Mount Isa region of Queensland. Their ancestral tribe has been called "the elite of the Aboriginal warriors of Queensland". In 1884 they were massacred at "Battle Mountain" by settlers and police.
Yalarnnga is an extinct Australian Aboriginal language of the Pama–Nyungan language family, that may be related to the Kalkatungu language. It was formerly spoken by the Yalarnnga people in areas near the Gulf of Carpentaria the towns of Dajarra and Cloncurry in far northwestern Queensland. The last native speaker died in 1980. It is a suffixing agglutinative language with no attested prefixes.
Pitta Pitta is an extinct Australian Aboriginal language. It was spoken around Boulia, Queensland.
Meriam or the Eastern Torres Strait language is the language of the people of the small islands of Mer, Waier and Dauar, Erub, and Ugar in the eastern Torres Strait, Queensland, Australia. In the Western Torres Strait language, Kalaw Lagaw Ya, it is called Mœyam or Mœyamau Ya. It is the only Papuan language in Australian territory.
Warluwarra is an extinct Australian Aboriginal language of Queensland. Waluwarra has a traditional language region in the local government area of Shire of Boulia, including Walgra Station and Wolga, from Roxborough Downs north to Carandotta Station and Urandangi on the Georgina River, on Moonah Creek to Rochedale, south-east of Pituri Creek.
There are three languages spoken in the Torres Strait Islands: two indigenous languages and an English-based creole. The indigenous language spoken mainly in the western and central islands is Kalaw Lagaw Ya, belonging to the Pama–Nyungan languages of the Australian mainland. The other indigenous language spoken mainly in the eastern islands is Meriam Mir: a member of the Trans-Fly languages spoken on the nearby south coast of New Guinea and the only Papuan language spoken on Australian territory. Both languages are agglutinative; however Kalaw Lagaw Ya appears to be undergoing a transition into a declensional language while Meriam Mìr is more clearly agglutinative. Yumplatok, or Torres Strait Creole, the third language, is a non-typical Pacific English Creole and is the main language of communication on the islands.
The Paman languages are an Australian language family spoken on Cape York Peninsula, Queensland. First noted by Kenneth Hale, Paman is noteworthy for the profound phonological changes which have affected some of its descendants.
The Karnic languages are a group of languages of the Pama–Nyungan family. According to Dixon (2002), these are three separate families, but Bowern (2001) establishes regular paradigmatic connections among many of the languages, demonstrating them as a genealogical group. Bowern classifies them as follows:
Umpila, also known as Ompeila, Ompela, Oom-billa, or Koko-umpilo, is an Aboriginal Australian language, or dialect cluster, of the Cape York Peninsula in northern Queensland. It is spoken by about 100 Aboriginal people, many of them elderly.
Maran or Maric is an extinct branch of the Pama–Nyungan family of Australian languages formerly spoken throughout much of Queensland by many of the Murri peoples. The well attested Maric languages are clearly related; however, many languages of the area became extinct before much could be documented of them, and their classification is uncertain. The clear Maric languages are:
Kalkatungic is a branch of the Pama–Nyungan family,
Kaytetye is an Australian Aboriginal language primarily spoken in the Northern Territory north of Alice Springs by the Kaytetye people, who live around Barrow Creek and Tennant Creek. It belongs to the Arandic subgroup of the Pama-Nyungan languages and is related to Alyawarra, which is one of the Upper Arrernte dialects. It has an unusual phonology and there are no known dialects.
Darumbal, also spelt Dharambal, is an Australian Aboriginal language of Queensland in Australia declared extinct. It was spoken in the Rockhampton area of Queensland, as well as on the Capricorn Coast, Southern Great Keppel Island and Yeppoon islands. Dialects were Guwinmal, Karunbara, Rakiwara, and Wapabura. It is classified with Bayali as a Kingkel language, but the two are not close, with a low 21% shared vocabulary. Indeed, Angela Terrill states that "there is no evidence on which to base a claim of a low-level genetic group including Dharumbal with any other language".
Barry John Blake is an Australian linguist, specializing in the description of Australian Aboriginal languages. He is a professor emeritus at La Trobe University Melbourne.
Proto-Pama–Nyungan is a hypothetical ancestral language from which all Pama–Nyungan languages are supposed to have derived. It may have been spoken as recently as about 5,000 years ago, much more recently than Aboriginal Australian peoples are believed to have been inhabiting various parts of Australia.
References
- 1 2 G13 Kalkatungu at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
- ↑
This Wikipedia article incorporates text from Kalkatunga published by the State Library of Queensland under CC BY licence , accessed on 25 May 2022. - ↑ O'Grady G.N, Voegelen C.F, Voegelen F.M (1966) Languages of the Indo-Pacific, Fascicle six, Anthropological linguistics 8/2
- ↑ Dixon, R. M. W. (2002). Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- ↑ "Sheree speaking Kalkutungu and English - Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders" on YouTube
- ↑ "Robert Ah Wing - A Kalkatungu Language Story" on YouTube
- ↑
- Blake, B. J. (1979). A Kalkatungu grammar. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
- ↑ Blake, Barry J. (1981). Australian Aboriginal languages: a general introduction. London: Angus & Robertson Publishers. ISBN 0-207-14044-8.
- ↑ Kendon, A. (1988) Sign Languages of Aboriginal Australia: Cultural, Semiotic and Communicative Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Roth, Walter E. (1897). The expression of ideas by manual signs: a sign-language. (p. 273–301) Reprinted from Roth, W.E. Ethnological studies among the North-West-Central Queensland Aborigines. London, Queensland Agent-Generals Information Office, 1897; 71–90; Information collected from the following tribes; Pitta-Pitta, Boinji, Ulaolinya, Wonkajera, Walookera, Undekerebina, Kalkadoon, Mitakoodi, Woonamurra, Goa. Reprinted (1978) in Aboriginal sign languages of the Americas and Australia. New York: Plenum Press, vol. 2.
