Yanyuwa language
Encyclopedia
The Yanyuwa language is spoken by the Yanyuwa people around the settlement of Borroloola (Yanyuwa burrulula) in the Northern Territory
, Australia
.
Yanyuwa, like many Australian Aboriginal languages
, is a complex agglutinative language whose grammar is pervaded by a set of sixteen noun class
es, whose agreements are complicated and numerous. Yanyuwa is ergative
.
Yanyuwa is critically endangered
. Despite this, the anthropologist John Bradley, who has worked with the Yanyuwa for three decades (and who also fluently speaks the language), has produced an enormous dictionary and grammar of the language along with a cultural atlas in collaboration with a core group of senior men and women, so Yanyuwa's impending extinction may not be permanent.
Yanyuwa speakers have also actively engaged in making a number of films and more recently have begun a project to animate important stories and songlines. Three important films that they have made are:
Kanymarda Yuwa -Two Laws,
Buwarrala Akarriya - Journey East,
Ka-wayawayama - Aeroplane Dance.
All three films have extensive narratives in Yanyuwa, with subtitles.
for stops
, compared to 3 for English and 4–6 for most other Australian languages.
es, distinguished by prefixes. In some cases, different prefixes are used depending on whether the speaker is a male or a female.
Notes:
(w) women's speech, (m) men's speech, 0- no prefix used.
rra- is a more formal female/feminine prefix often used in elicitations, a- is the informal everyday form. There is only one word in Yanyuwa, rra-ardu "girl", where the rra- prefix is always used. This to distinguish it from the men's speech form ardu "boy", for which women say nya-ardu.
level. The only time men use the women's dialect is when they are quoting someone of the opposite sex, and vice versa.
An example of this speech is provided below:
(w) nya-buyi nya-ardu kiwa-wingka waykaliya wulangindu kanyilu-kala nyikunya-baba.
(m) buyi ardu ka-wingka waykaliya wulangindu kila-kala nyiku-baba.
The little boy went down to the river and saw his brother
is speech style used when talking to or near certain relatives: one's siblings and cousins of the opposite sex, one's brother-, sister-, father- and mother-in-law, and one's nieces and nephews if their father (for male speakers) or mother (for female speakers) has died. Occasionally avoidance speech takes the form of different affixes to usual speech, but generally it is simply a change in vocabulary.
An example of avoidance speech is given below:
Avoidance: Ja-wuynykurninji ki-bujibujilu runungkawu ma-wulyarri.
Normal: Ja-wingkayi ki-buyukalu wubanthawu ma-ngarra.
He is going to the fire to cook food.
, which is part of Yanyuwa territory, another set of vocabulary may be used to replace the terms used when on the mainland. There is more variance about the usage of island speech than the other speech styles.
and languages closely related to it.
Northern Territory
The Northern Territory is a federal territory of Australia, occupying much of the centre of the mainland continent, as well as the central northern regions...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
.
Yanyuwa, like many Australian Aboriginal languages
Australian Aboriginal languages
The Australian Aboriginal languages comprise several language families and isolates native to the Australian Aborigines of Australia and a few nearby islands, but by convention excluding the languages of Tasmania and the Torres Strait Islanders...
, is a complex agglutinative language whose grammar is pervaded by a set of sixteen noun class
Noun class
In linguistics, the term noun class refers to a system of categorizing nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of characteristic features of its referent, such as sex, animacy, shape, but counting a given noun among nouns of such or another class is often clearly conventional...
es, whose agreements are complicated and numerous. Yanyuwa is ergative
Ergative-absolutive language
An ergative–absolutive language is a language that treats the argument of an intransitive verb like the object of a transitive verb, but differently from the agent of a transitive verb.-Ergative vs...
.
Yanyuwa is critically endangered
Endangered language
An endangered language is a language that is at risk of falling out of use. If it loses all its native speakers, it becomes a dead language. If eventually no one speaks the language at all it becomes an "extinct language"....
. Despite this, the anthropologist John Bradley, who has worked with the Yanyuwa for three decades (and who also fluently speaks the language), has produced an enormous dictionary and grammar of the language along with a cultural atlas in collaboration with a core group of senior men and women, so Yanyuwa's impending extinction may not be permanent.
Yanyuwa speakers have also actively engaged in making a number of films and more recently have begun a project to animate important stories and songlines. Three important films that they have made are:
Kanymarda Yuwa -Two Laws,
Buwarrala Akarriya - Journey East,
Ka-wayawayama - Aeroplane Dance.
All three films have extensive narratives in Yanyuwa, with subtitles.
Phonology
Yanyuwa is extremely unusual in having 7 places of articulationPlace of articulation
In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation of a consonant is the point of contact where an obstruction occurs in the vocal tract between an articulatory gesture, an active articulator , and a passive location...
for stops
Stop consonant
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...
, compared to 3 for English and 4–6 for most other Australian languages.
Consonants
| Peripheral Peripheral consonant In Australian linguistics, the peripheral consonants are a natural class encompassing consonants articulated at the extremes of the mouth: bilabials and velars. That is, they are the non-coronal consonants... |
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... |
|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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:... |
Front 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).... |
Back 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).... |
Palato- alveolar |
Dental | 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... |
Retroflex Retroflex consonant A retroflex consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants, especially in Indology... |
|
| Stop Stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &... |
b (b) | ɡ̟ (yk) | ɡ̠ (k) | ḏ (j) | d̪ (th) | d (d) | ɖ (rd) |
| Prenasalised stop | ⁿb (mb) | ⁿɡ̟ (nyk) | ⁿɡ̠ (ngk) | ⁿḏ (nj) | ⁿd̪ (nth) | ⁿd (nd) | ⁿɖ (rnd) |
| 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) | ŋ̟ (nyng) | ŋ̠ (ng) | ṉ (ny) | n̪ (nh) | n (n) | ɳ (rn) |
| 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.... |
ḻ (ly) | l̪ (lh) | l (l) | ɭ (rl) | |||
| Rhotic Rhotic consonant In phonetics, rhotic consonants, also called tremulants or "R-like" sounds, are liquid consonants that are traditionally represented orthographically by symbols derived from the Greek letter rho, including "R, r" from the Roman alphabet and "Р, p" from the Cyrillic alphabet... |
r (rr) | ɻ (r) | |||||
| Semivowel Semivowel In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel is a sound, such as English or , that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary rather than as the nucleus of a syllable.-Classification:... |
w (w) | j (y) |
Vowels
| Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also... |
Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark... |
|
|---|---|---|
| High | i (i) | u (u) |
| Low | a (a) | |
Noun classes
Yanyuwa has 16 noun classNoun class
In linguistics, the term noun class refers to a system of categorizing nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of characteristic features of its referent, such as sex, animacy, shape, but counting a given noun among nouns of such or another class is often clearly conventional...
es, distinguished by prefixes. In some cases, different prefixes are used depending on whether the speaker is a male or a female.
| # | prefix | class | example |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | rra-/a- | female (human centred) | rra-bardibardi "old lady" |
| 2 | nya- (women's speech) 0- (men's speech) | male (human centred) | (w)nya-malbu (m)malbu "old man" |
| 3 | rra-/a- | feminine | a-karnkarnka "white bellied sea eagle" |
| 4 | 0- | masculine | nangurrbuwala "hill kangaroo" |
| 5 | ma- | food (non-meat) | ma-ngakuya "cycad fruit" |
| 6 | na- | arboreal | na-wabija "digging stick" |
| 7 | narnu- | abstract | narnu-wardi "badness" |
| 8 | possessive pronominal prefixes | body parts | nanda-wulaya "her head", (w)niwa-wulaya (m)na-wulaya "his head" |
| 9 | 0- | familiar kinship | kajaja "father, dad" |
| 10 | various pronominal prefixes | formal kinship for close kin | angatharra-wangu "my wife" |
| 11 | various pronominal prefixes | formal kinship-grandparent level | karna-marrini "my daughter's child" |
| 12 | various pronominal prefixes/suffixes | formal kinship-avoidance | rra-kayibanthayindalu "your daughter in law" |
| 13 | rri- dual and li- plural | human group | li-maramaranja "dugong hunters of excellence" |
| 14 | rra-/a-, nya-. 0- | personal names | rra-Marrngawi, (w)nya-Lajumba (m)Lajumba |
| 15 | rra-/a- / 0- | ceremony names | rra-Kunabibi, Yilayi, rra-Milkathatha |
| 16 | 0- | place names | Kandanbarrawujbi, Burrulula, Wathangka |
Notes:
(w) women's speech, (m) men's speech, 0- no prefix used.
rra- is a more formal female/feminine prefix often used in elicitations, a- is the informal everyday form. There is only one word in Yanyuwa, rra-ardu "girl", where the rra- prefix is always used. This to distinguish it from the men's speech form ardu "boy", for which women say nya-ardu.
Male and female dialects
Yanyuwa is unusual among languages of the world in that it has separate dialects for men and for women at the morphologicalMorphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
level. The only time men use the women's dialect is when they are quoting someone of the opposite sex, and vice versa.
An example of this speech is provided below:
(w) nya-buyi nya-ardu kiwa-wingka waykaliya wulangindu kanyilu-kala nyikunya-baba.
(m) buyi ardu ka-wingka waykaliya wulangindu kila-kala nyiku-baba.
The little boy went down to the river and saw his brother
Speech styles
In Yanyuwa, certain words have synonyms which are used to replace the everyday term in certain cultural situations.Avoidance speech
Avoidance speechAvoidance speech
Avoidance speech, or "mother-in-law languages", is a feature of many Australian Aboriginal languages and some North American languages and Bantu languages of Africa whereby in the presence of certain relatives it is taboo to use everyday speech style, and instead a special speech style must be...
is speech style used when talking to or near certain relatives: one's siblings and cousins of the opposite sex, one's brother-, sister-, father- and mother-in-law, and one's nieces and nephews if their father (for male speakers) or mother (for female speakers) has died. Occasionally avoidance speech takes the form of different affixes to usual speech, but generally it is simply a change in vocabulary.
- Example: In usual speech a digging stickDigging stickIn archaeology and anthropology a digging stick is the term given to a variety of wooden implements used primarily by subsistence-based cultures to dig out underground food such as roots and tubers or burrowing animals and anthills...
is referred to as na-wabija, but when talking to one of the above relatives, the word used is na-wulungkayangu.
An example of avoidance speech is given below:
Avoidance: Ja-wuynykurninji ki-bujibujilu runungkawu ma-wulyarri.
Normal: Ja-wingkayi ki-buyukalu wubanthawu ma-ngarra.
He is going to the fire to cook food.
Ritual speech
Another set of vocabulary is used during ceremonies and other ritual occasions. Many of the words used in ritual speech are sacred and kept secret.- Example: In usual speech a dingoDingoThe Australian Dingo or Warrigal is a free-roaming wild dog unique to the continent of Australia, mainly found in the outback. Its original ancestors are thought to have arrived with humans from southeast Asia thousands of years ago, when dogs were still relatively undomesticated and closer to...
is referred to as wardali, but during ritual occasions, the word used is yarrarriwira. This is one ritual term which is known to the general public, as are some other terms for flora and fauna.
Island speech
When on the Sir Edward Pellew Group of IslandsSir Edward Pellew Group of Islands
The Sir Edward Pellew Group of Islands is situated in the south-west corner of the Gulf of Carpentaria, off the northern coast of Australia.-History:They were named in 1802 by Matthew Flinders in honour of Sir Edward Pellew, a fellow naval officer...
, which is part of Yanyuwa territory, another set of vocabulary may be used to replace the terms used when on the mainland. There is more variance about the usage of island speech than the other speech styles.
- Example: When on the mainland, fishingFishingFishing is the activity of trying to catch wild fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping....
is referred to as wardjangkayarra, but when on the islands, the word used is akarimantharra.
Classification
Dixon (2002), who rejects the validity of Pama–Nyungan, accepts that Yanyuwa is demonstrably related to WarluwaraWarluwara language
Warluwara is a moribund Australian Aboriginal language of Queensland.-Classification:R. M. W. Dixon places Warluwara in the Southern Ngarna subgroup, along with Wagaya, Yindjilandji, and Bularnu. This is in turn related to Yanyuwa.- Sign :...
and languages closely related to it.
External links
- Yanyuwa recordings demonstrating the seven POAs.
- Yanyuwa Wuka: Language from Yanyuwa Country - a Yanyuwa Dictionary and Cultural Resource (PDF)