This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations .(December 2011) |
Mbabaram | |
---|---|
Barbaram | |
Region | Queensland |
Ethnicity | Mbabaram |
Extinct | 1979[ citation needed ] |
Pama–Nyungan
| |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | vmb |
Glottolog | mbab1239 |
AIATSIS [1] | Y115 |
ELP | Mbabaram |
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.
Until R. M. W. Dixon's work on the language, "Barbaram" (as it was then known) was thought to be too different from other languages to be part of the Pama–Nyungan language family. Dixon revealed it to have descended from a more typical form, that was obscured by subsequent changes. Dixon (2002) himself, however, still regards genetic relationships between Mbabaram and other languages as unproven.
Mbabaram was spoken by the Mbabaram tribe in Queensland, southwest of Cairns ( 17°20′S145°0′E / 17.333°S 145.000°E ).
Nearby tribal dialects were Agwamin, Djangun (Kuku-Yalanji), Muluridji (Kuku-Yalanji), Djabugay, Yidiny, Ngadjan (Dyirbal), Mamu (Dyirbal), Jirrbal (Dyirbal), Girramay (Dyirbal), and Warungu. While these were often mutually intelligible, to varying degrees, with the speech of the adjacent tribes, none were even partially intelligible with Mbabaram. The Mbabaram would often learn the languages of other tribes rather than vice versa, because Mbabaram was found difficult.
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
High | i | ɨ | u |
Low-mid | ɛ | ɔ | |
Low | a |
Peripheral | Laminal | Apical | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Bilabial | Velar | Palatal | Dental | Alveolar | Retroflex | |
Plosive | b | ɡ ɡʷ | ɟ | d̪ | d dʷ | |
Nasal | m | ŋ | ɲ | n̪ | n nʷ | |
Lateral | l | |||||
Rhotic | r | ɻ | ||||
Semivowel | w | j |
Mbabaram would have originally had simply three vowels, /iau/, like most Australian languages, but several changes occurred to add /ɛɨɔ/ to the system:
The first consonant of each word was then dropped, leaving the distribution of /ɔɛɨ/ unpredictable.
Mbabaram is famous in linguistic circles for a striking coincidence in its vocabulary. When Dixon finally managed to meet Bennett, he began his study of the language by eliciting a few basic nouns; among the first of these was the word for "dog". Bennett supplied the Mbabaram translation, dog. Dixon suspected that Bennett had not understood the question, or that Bennett's knowledge of Mbabaram had been tainted by decades of using English. But it turned out that the Mbabaram word for "dog" was in fact dúg, [2] pronounced almost identically to the Australian English word (compare true cognates such as Yidiny gudaga, Dyirbal guda, Djabugay gurraa and Guugu Yimidhirr gudaa, for example [3] ). The similarity is a complete coincidence: the English and Mbabaram languages developed on opposite sides of the planet over the course of tens of thousands of years. This and other false cognates have been cited by typological linguist Bernard Comrie as a caution against deciding that languages are related based on a small number of lexical comparisons. [4]
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.
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Guugu Yimithirr, also rendered Guugu Yimidhirr, Guguyimidjir, and many other spellings, is an Australian Aboriginal language, the traditional language of the Guugu Yimithirr people of Far North Queensland. It belongs to the Pama-Nyungan language family. Most of the speakers today live at the community of Hope Vale, about 46 kilometres (29 mi) from Cooktown. However, as of June 2020 only about half of the Guugu Yimithirr nation speak the language. As such, efforts are being made to teach it to children. Guugu Yimithirr is the source language of the word kangaroo.
Robert Malcolm Ward "Bob" Dixon is a Professor of Linguistics in the College of Arts, Society, and Education and The Cairns Institute, James Cook University, Queensland. He is also Deputy Director of The Language and Culture Research Centre at JCU. Doctor of Letters, he was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters Honoris Causa by JCU in 2018. Fellow of British Academy; Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, and Honorary member of the Linguistic Society of America, he is one of three living linguists to be specifically mentioned in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics by Peter Matthews (2014).
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Guugu Yalandji, also spelt Kuku-Yalanji, is an Australian Aboriginal language of Queensland. It is the traditional language of the Kuku Yalanji people.
Warrgamay is an extinct Australian Aboriginal language of northeast Queensland. It was closely related to Dyirbal.
Wamin, also known as Agwamin or Ewamian, is an Australian Aboriginal language of North Queensland spoken by the Ewamian people. Wamin was traditionally spoken in the Etheridge region, in the areas around Einasliegh, Georgetown, and Mount Surprise.
The Yidiny, are an Aboriginal Australian people in Far North Queensland. Their language is the Yidiny language.
Mbabaram or Mbabaɽam, also (M)Barbaram, often referred to as the Barbaram people, were an Indigenous Australian people living in Queensland in the rainforests of the Atherton Tableland.
The Wakaman people, also spelt Wagaman, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the state of Queensland. According to some authorities, they may be interchangeable with the group identified by ethnographers as the Agwamin.