Dyirbal language
Dyirbal | |
---|---|
Region | Northeast |
Native speakers | 21 (2021 census)[1] |
Dialects |
|
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | dbl |
Glottolog | dyir1250 |
AIATSIS[3] | Y123 |
ELP | Dyirbal |
Girramay[4] | |
Area of historical use | |
Dyirbal is classified as Severely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger | |
Dyirbal /ˈdʒɜːrbəl/[5] (also Djirubal) 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.[1] 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.
In the years since the Dyirbal grammar by Robert Dixon was published in 1972, Dyirbal has steadily moved closer to extinction as younger community members have failed to learn it.[6]
Dialects
There are many different groups speaking dialects of Dyirbal language. Researcher Robert Dixon estimates that Dyirbal had, at its peak, 10 dialects.[7]
- Dyirbal (or Jirrbal[9]) spoken by the Dyirbalŋan[8]
- Mamu, spoken by the Waɽibara, Dulgubara, Bagiɽgabara, Dyiɽibara, and Mandubara[8] (There are also different types of Mamu spoken by individual groups, such as Warribara Mamu, and Dulgubara Mamu[9])
- Giramay (Or Girramay[9]), spoken by the Giramaygan[8]
- Gulŋay (or Gulngay[9]), spoken by the Malanbara[8]
- Dyiru (or Djirru[9]), spoken by the Dyirubagala[8]
- Ngadyan (or Ngadjan[9]), spoken by the Ngadyiandyi[8]
- Walmalbarra[9]
The speakers of these dialects largely regard their dialects as different languages. They were classified as dialects by researcher Robert Dixon, who classified them as such based on linguistic criteria and their similarities, some dialects sharing as much as 90% of their vocabularies. Since the dialects were viewed by speakers as different languages, the language had no formal name, so Dixon assigned the language the name Dyirbal, naming it after Jirrbal, which was the dialect with the largest number of speakers at the time he was studying it.[7]
Neighbouring languages
Languages neighbouring the many Dyirbal dialects include:[7]
Phonology
Consonants
Dyirbal has only four
Peripheral | Laminal | Apical | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Bilabial | Velar | Palatal | Alveolar | Retroflex | |
Plosive | p | k | c | t
|
|
Nasal | m | ŋ | ɲ | n
|
|
Trill | r
|
||||
Approximant | w | j | l |
ɻ |
Vowels
The Dyirbal vowel system is typical of Australia, with three vowels: /i/, /a/ and /u/, though /u/ is realised as [o] in certain environments and /a/ can be realised as [e], also depending on the environment in which the phoneme appears.[further explanation needed] Thus the actual inventory of sounds is greater than the inventory of phonemes would suggest. Stress always falls on the first syllable of a word and usually on subsequent odd-numbered syllables except the ultima, which is always unstressed. The result of this is that consecutive stressed syllables do not occur.
Grammar
The language is best known for its system of
- I – most animate objects, men
- II – women, water, fire, violence, and exceptional animals[10]
- III – edible fruit and vegetables
- IV – miscellaneous (includes things not classifiable in the first three)
The class usually labelled "feminine" (II) inspired the title of George Lakoff's book Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things. Some linguists distinguish between such systems of classification and the gendered division of items into the categories of "feminine", "masculine" and (sometimes) "neuter" that is found in, for example, many Indo-European languages.
Dyirbal shows a
Taboo
There used to be in place a highly complex
Furthermore, because marriage typically took place a generation above or below, the cross-cousin of the opposite sex often is a potential mother-in-law or father-in-law.
The taboo relationship was reciprocal. Thus, an individual was not allowed to speak with one's own mother-in-law and it was equally taboo for the mother-in-law to speak to her son-in-law.[11] This relationship also prevailed among both genders such that a daughter-in-law was forbidden to speak to directly or approach her father-in-law and vice versa. This taboo existed, but less strongly enforced, between members of the same sex such that a male individual ought to have used the respectful style of speech in the presence of his father-in-law, but the father-in-law could decide whether or not to use the everyday style of speech or the respectful style in the presence of his son-in-law.[11]
The specialized and complex form of the language, the Dyalŋuy, was used in the presence of the taboo relatives whereas a form referred to in most dialects as Guwal was used in all other circumstances.[11] The Dyalŋuy had one quarter of the amount of lexical items as the everyday language which reduced the semantic content in actual communication in the presence of a taboo relative.[14] For example, in Dyalŋuy the verb 'to ask' is baŋarrmba-l. In Guwal, 'to ask' is ŋanba-l, 'to invite someone over' is yumba-l, 'to invite someone to accompany one' is bunma-l and 'to keep asking after having already been told' is gunji-y. There are no correspondences to the other 3 verbs of Guwal in Dyalŋuy.[13]
To get around this limitation, Dyirbal speakers use many syntactic and semantic tricks to make do with a minimal vocabulary which reveals a lot to linguists about the semantic nature of Dyirbal. For example, Guwal makes use of lexical causatives, such as bana- 'break.TR' and gaynyja- 'break.NTR'. This is similar to English "He broke the glass" (transitive) vs. "The glass broke." (intransitive). Since Dyirbal has fewer lexemes, a morpheme -rri- is used as an intransitive derivational suffix. Thus the Dyalŋguy equivalents of the two words above were transitive yuwa and intransitive yuwa-rri-.[15]
The lexical items found in Dyalŋuy were mainly derived from three sources: "borrowings from the everyday register of neighbouring dialects or languages, the creation of new [Dyalŋuy] forms by phonological deformation of lexemes from the language's own everyday style, and the borrowing of terms that were already in the [Dyalŋuy] style of a neighboring language or dialect".[16]
An example of borrowing between dialects is the word for sun in the Yidin and Ngadyan dialects. In Yidin, the Guwal style word for sun is [buŋan], and this same word was also the Dyalŋuy style of the word for sun in the Ngadyan dialect.
Young Dyirbal
In the 1970s, speakers of Dyirbal and Giramay dialects purchased land in the Murray Upper, with the assistance of the Australian federal government and formed a community. Within this community shift in language began to occur, and with it came the emergence of new form of Dyirbal, dubbed by researcher Annette Schmidt "Young Dyirbal" or "YD". This language stands in contrast to "Traditional Dyirbal" or "TD".[17]
Young Dyirbal is grammatically distinct from Traditional Dyirbal, in some cases being more similar to English, such as the gradual loss of ergative inflection, as is found in Traditional Dyirbal, in favour of a style of inflection more similar to the one found in English.[17]
Notes
- ^ a b Australian Bureau of Statistics (2021). "Cultural diversity: Census". Retrieved 13 October 2022.
- Dixon, R. M. W. (2002). Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development. Cambridge University Press. p. xxxiii.
- ^ Y123 Dyirbal at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
- ^ Endangered Languages Project data for Girramay.
- ^ Laurie Bauer, 2007, The Linguistics Student’s Handbook, Edinburgh
- ^ Schmidt, A (1985). Young People's Dyirbal: An Example of Language Death from Australia. Cambridge University Press.
- ^ S2CID 145363699.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-521-09748-2, retrieved 9 December 2020
- ^ OCLC 70724682.
- ^ Lakoff, George (1990). Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things. University of Chicago Press. p. 5.
- ^ a b c d e f Dixon, R. M. W. (1972). The Dyirbal language of north Queensland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- ^ a b Dixon, R. M. W. (1989). "The Dyirbal kinship system". Oceania. 59 (4): 245–268.
- ^ a b Dixon, R. M. W. (1990). "The origin of "mother-in-law vocabulary" in two Australian languages". Anthropological Linguistics. 32 (1–2): 1–56.
- ^ Silverstein, M. (1976). "Shifters, linguistic categories, and cultural description". In Basso, K. H.; Selby, H. A. (eds.). Meaning in Anthropology. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. pp. 11–55.
- ^ Dixon, R. M. W. (2000). "A Typology of Causatives: Form, Syntax, and Meaning". In R. M. W., Dixon; Aikhenvald, Alexendra Y. (eds.). Changing Valency: Case Studies in Transitivity. Cambridge University Press. pp. 39–40.
- ^ Evans, N. (2003). "Context, culture, and structuration in the languages of Australia". Annual Review of Anthropology. 32: 13–40.
- ^ JSTOR 414150.
References
- ISBN 978-0-521-08510-6.
External links
- Lecture notes on Dyirbal illustrating mother-in-law language
- Bibliography of Dyirbal people and language resources Archived 28 May 2015 at the Wayback Machine, at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
- Bibliography of Girramay people and language resources Archived 29 May 2015 at the Wayback Machine, at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
- Bibliography of the Gulngay people and language resources[permanent dead link], at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
- Rosetta Project: Dyirbal Swadesh List
- Jirrbal Language Recordings, State Library of Queensland