Damin
Encyclopedia
Damin was a ceremonial language register
used by the advanced initiated men of the Lardil (Leerdil in the practical orthography) and the Yangkaal tribes in Aboriginal Australia. Both inhabit islands in the Gulf of Carpentaria
, the Lardil on Mornington Island
, the largest island of the Wesley Group, and the Yangkaal and Forsyth Islands. Their languages belong to the same family
, the Tankic languages
(Tangka means person in the Tankic languages). Lardil is the most divergent of the Tankic languages, while the others are mutually comprehensible with Yangkaal.
The Lardil word Damin can be translated as being silent.
, and warama, which involved penile subincision. There were no ceremonies for women, although women did play an important role in these ceremonies, especially in the luruku ceremony.
It is sometimes said that Demiin was a secret language, but this is misleading since there was no attempt to prevent the uninitiated members of the Leerdil tribe from overhearing it. However it was taught during the warama ceremony and, therefore, in isolation from the uninitiated. At least one elder is known, who, though not having been subincised, had an excellent command of Demiin, but this seems to have been a unique case.
Damin lexical words were organised into semantic fields and shouted out to the initiate in a single session. As each word was announced, a second speaker gave its Lardil equivalent. However, it normally took several sessions before a novice mastered the basics and could use Damin openly in the community. One speaker did claim to have learned to speak Demiin in a single session, but on the other hand two senior warama men admitted that they lacked a firm command of the register.
Once Demiin had been learned, the speakers were known as Demiinkurlda (Demiin possessors). They spoke the register particularly in ritual contexts, but also in everyday secular life, when foraging, sitting about gossiping, and the like.
language outside of Africa
.
Damin had a much more restricted and generic lexicon than everyday language. With only about 150 lexical roots, each word in Damin stood for several words of Lardil or Yangkaal. It had only two pronouns (n!a "me" and n!u "not me"), for example, compared to Lardil's nineteen, and had an antonym
ic prefix kuri- (tjitjuu "small", kuritjitjuu "large").
Grammatically, the Demiin registers of the Lardil and Yangkaal use all the grammatical suffixes of those languages, and so therefore are broadly similar.
's four pairs of vowels, [a, aː, i, iː, u, uː], in root words, plus the fourth, [ə, əː], in the suffixes. It has the same pulmonic egressive consonants as everyday Lardil, but this is augmented by four other airstream mechanism
s: velaric ingressive (the nasal clicks), glottalic egressive (a velar ejective), pulmonic ingressive (a lateral fricative), and velaric egressive (a bilabial 'spurt'). The consonants of Damin, in the practical orthography and probable IPA equivalents, are:
. Hale et al. believe that it was invented by Lardil elders. Evans et al., after studying the mythology of both tribes, speculate that it was the Yangkaal elders who invented Demiin and passed it to the Lardil and not the other way around.
Register (linguistics)
In linguistics, a register is a variety of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting. For example, when speaking in a formal setting an English speaker may be more likely to adhere more closely to prescribed grammar, pronounce words ending in -ing with a velar nasal...
used by the advanced initiated men of the Lardil (Leerdil in the practical orthography) and the Yangkaal tribes in Aboriginal Australia. Both inhabit islands in the Gulf of Carpentaria
Gulf of Carpentaria
The Gulf of Carpentaria is a large, shallow sea enclosed on three sides by northern Australia and bounded on the north by the Arafura Sea...
, the Lardil on Mornington Island
Mornington Island
Mornington Island is the northern most of 22 islands that form the Wellesley Islands group. The island is located in the Gulf of Carpentaria at and is part of the Gulf Country region in the Australian state of Queensland. The Manowar and Rocky Islands Important Bird Area lies about 40 km to...
, the largest island of the Wesley Group, and the Yangkaal and Forsyth Islands. Their languages belong to the same family
Language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term 'family' comes from the tree model of language origination in historical linguistics, which makes use of a metaphor comparing languages to people in a...
, the Tankic languages
Tankic languages
The Tangkic languages form a small language family of Australian Aboriginal languages spoken in northern Australia.The Tangkic languages are Lardil and its special register Damin, Kayardild, and Yukulta...
(Tangka means person in the Tankic languages). Lardil is the most divergent of the Tankic languages, while the others are mutually comprehensible with Yangkaal.
The Lardil word Damin can be translated as being silent.
Ceremonies
The Lardil had two initiation ceremonies for men, namely luruku, which involved circumcisionCircumcision
Male circumcision is the surgical removal of some or all of the foreskin from the penis. The word "circumcision" comes from Latin and ....
, and warama, which involved penile subincision. There were no ceremonies for women, although women did play an important role in these ceremonies, especially in the luruku ceremony.
It is sometimes said that Demiin was a secret language, but this is misleading since there was no attempt to prevent the uninitiated members of the Leerdil tribe from overhearing it. However it was taught during the warama ceremony and, therefore, in isolation from the uninitiated. At least one elder is known, who, though not having been subincised, had an excellent command of Demiin, but this seems to have been a unique case.
Damin lexical words were organised into semantic fields and shouted out to the initiate in a single session. As each word was announced, a second speaker gave its Lardil equivalent. However, it normally took several sessions before a novice mastered the basics and could use Damin openly in the community. One speaker did claim to have learned to speak Demiin in a single session, but on the other hand two senior warama men admitted that they lacked a firm command of the register.
Once Demiin had been learned, the speakers were known as Demiinkurlda (Demiin possessors). They spoke the register particularly in ritual contexts, but also in everyday secular life, when foraging, sitting about gossiping, and the like.
Linguistic features
Demiin is noted for being the only clickClick consonant
Clicks are speech sounds found as consonants in many languages of southern Africa, and in three languages of East Africa. Examples of these sounds familiar to English speakers are the tsk! tsk! or tut-tut used to express disapproval or pity, the tchick! used to spur on a horse, and the...
language outside of Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
.
Damin had a much more restricted and generic lexicon than everyday language. With only about 150 lexical roots, each word in Damin stood for several words of Lardil or Yangkaal. It had only two pronouns (n!a "me" and n!u "not me"), for example, compared to Lardil's nineteen, and had an antonym
Antonym
In lexical semantics, opposites are words that lie in an inherently incompatible binary relationship as in the opposite pairs male : female, long : short, up : down, and precede : follow. The notion of incompatibility here refers to the fact that one word in an opposite pair entails that it is not...
ic prefix kuri- (tjitjuu "small", kuritjitjuu "large").
Grammatically, the Demiin registers of the Lardil and Yangkaal use all the grammatical suffixes of those languages, and so therefore are broadly similar.
Phonetics
Damin has three of LardilLardil language
Lardil is a moribund language spoken on Mornington Island , in the Wellesley Islands of Queensland in northern Australia. Lardil is unusual among Australian languages in that it features a ceremonial register, called Damin...
's four pairs of vowels, [a, aː, i, iː, u, uː], in root words, plus the fourth, [ə, əː], in the suffixes. It has the same pulmonic egressive consonants as everyday Lardil, but this is augmented by four other airstream mechanism
Airstream mechanism
In phonetics, the airstream mechanism is the method by which airflow is created in the vocal tract. Along with phonation, it is one of two mandatory aspects of sound production; without these, there can be no speech sound....
s: velaric ingressive (the nasal clicks), glottalic egressive (a velar ejective), pulmonic ingressive (a lateral fricative), and velaric egressive (a bilabial 'spurt'). The consonants of Damin, in the practical orthography and probable IPA equivalents, are:
| Bilabial Bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:... |
Denti- alveolar |
Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth... |
Postalveolar Postalveolar consonant Postalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate... |
Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... |
|||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| laminal Laminal consonant A laminal consonant is a phone produced by obstructing the air passage with the blade of the tongue, which is the flat top front surface just behind the tip of the tongue on the top. This contrasts with apical consonants, which are produced by creating an obstruction with the tongue apex only... |
apical Apical consonant An apical consonant is a phone produced by obstructing the air passage with the apex of the tongue . This contrasts with laminal consonants, which are produced by creating an obstruction with the blade of the tongue .This is not a very common distinction, and typically applied only to fricatives... |
apical | laminal | ||||
| Plosive | voiceless Voiceless In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, this is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word "phonation" implies voicing, and that voicelessness is the lack of... |
b [p] | th [t̻] | d [t̺] | rd [t˞] | tj [t̠] | k [k] |
| ejective Ejective consonant In phonetics, ejective consonants are voiceless consonants that are pronounced with simultaneous closure of the glottis. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated or tenuis consonants... |
k' [kʼ] | ||||||
| Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
m [m] | nh [n̻] | n [n̺] | rn [n˞] | ny [n̠] | ng [ŋ] | |
| Flap Flap consonant In phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator is thrown against another.-Contrast with stops and trills:... |
rr [ɾ] | ||||||
| Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no... |
central Central consonant A central or medial consonant is a consonant sound that is produced when air flows across the center of the mouth over the tongue. The class contrasts with lateral consonants, in which air flows over the sides of the tongue rather than down its center.... |
(w [w]) | r [ɹ] | y [j] | w [w] | ||
| lateral Lateral consonant A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth.... |
l [l] | ||||||
| Click Click consonant Clicks are speech sounds found as consonants in many languages of southern Africa, and in three languages of East Africa. Examples of these sounds familiar to English speakers are the tsk! tsk! or tut-tut used to express disapproval or pity, the tchick! used to spur on a horse, and the... |
nasal | m! [ŋʘ] | nh! [ŋǀ] | n! [ŋǃ] | rn! [ŋǃ˞] | ||
| oral egressive Egressive In human speech, egressive sounds are sounds by which the air stream is created by pushing air out through the mouth or nose. The three types of egressive sounds are pulmonic egressive , glottalic egressive , and lingual egressive... |
p' [kʘ↑] | ||||||
| Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or... |
voiceless ingressive Ingressive In human speech, ingressive sounds are sounds by which the air stream flows inward through the mouth or nose. The three types of ingressive sounds are lingual ingressive or velaric ingressive , glottalic ingressive , and pulmonic ingressive... |
L [ɬ↓] | |||||
The origin of Demiin
The origin of Demiin is unclear. The Lardil and the Yangkaal say that Demiin was created by a mythological figure in DreamtimeDreamtime
In the animist framework of Australian Aboriginal mythology, The Dreaming is a sacred era in which ancestral Totemic Spirit Beings formed The Creation.-The Dreaming of the Aboriginal times:...
. Hale et al. believe that it was invented by Lardil elders. Evans et al., after studying the mythology of both tribes, speculate that it was the Yangkaal elders who invented Demiin and passed it to the Lardil and not the other way around.