Australian languages back to home page
I did three years of fieldwork in Australia, chiefly at Numbulwar Mission in eastern Arnhem Land, on the coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria. I was in this region for two years in 1972-74 when I was a graduate student at University of Chicago, and again for one year in 1975-76 after receiving my PhD. I was entirely funded by the then Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (AIAS), now the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Studies (AIATSIS), in the Australian capital Canberra. I was generally in the field for 9 months/year, and at AIAS in Canberra the other three months.
Due largely to the galvanizing influence of Bob Dixon, Ken Hale, S.A. Wurm, and Michael Silverstein, channeled through the Institute as well as the Australian National University (ANU), and riding the wave of a major increase in funding from the newly elected Labour government of Gough Whitlam, there was a golden age of Australian fieldwork in the 1970s. I shared this Camelot with linguists like Francesca Merlan, Frank Wordick, Peter Austin, Alan Rumsey, Patrick McConvell, Peter Sutton, Barry Alpher, Barry Blake, David Nash, Jane Simpson, Graham McKay, Bruce Rigsby, Bernard Schebeck, Neil Chadwick, Margaret Sharpe, and Geoff O’Grady, along with numerous social anthropologists, ethnomusicologists, ethnoarcheologists, and others.
About half of my effort was devoted to the Nunggubuyu language, which is called Wubuy in more recent literature (nuN- is a gentilic prefix). My three-volume grammar-text-dictionary trilogy on this language is my flagship work from this period.
To avoid confusion, the language names I have used (in publications and/or manuscripts, and in this website), along with variant spellings and alternative names, are listed below. “—” means same as one of the names to its left. “PN” means Pama-Nyungan (a subfamily of Australian that covers most of the continent, plus the Yuulngu enclave in northeast Arnhem Land), “non-PN” is a loose term for the other Australian languages that stretch across north central and northwestern Australia. Glottolog names are as of October 2017. “Code” is ISO-639-3 and “gcode” is glottocode, both read off the Glottolog site. An asterisk after the ISO code means “in part,” i.e. the ISO code refers to a broader unit (e.g. this and one other language/dialect).
Heath ISO gcode Glottolog other
non-PN
Nunggubuyu nuy nung1290 Wubuy Yingkwira
Ngandi nid ngan1295 — —
Anindilyakwa aoi anin1240 — Anindilyaugwa, Enindhilyakwa, Anindhilyagwa
Ngalakan nig ngal1293 — —
Warndarang wnd wand1263 Wandarang Warndarrang
Mara mec mara1385 — Marra
PN (Yuulngu enclave)
Ritharngu rit rita1239 Ritarungo Ritharrngu, Ridharrngu
Dhuwal duj dhuw1249 — —
Dharlwangu dax* dhal1246 Dhalwangu —
PN (Barkly Tablelands and Central Australia)
Jingili jig djin1251 Jingulu Djingili, Djingulu
Ngarnga nji* ngar1283 — Nganga, Ngarngu
Warumungu wrm waru1265 — —
(~ Warramunga)
The idiosyncratic spelling “Ritarungo” seems to be of recent vintage through the SIL network (Ethnologue). I do not recall ever seeing it in the published literature. It is not clear why or by whom it was proposed, or why Glottolog has accepted it. Other spelling variants are due to a) alternative romanizations of [ɾ] as “r” or “rr,” and b) alternative romanizations of stops and affricates, which do not usually follow the English voiced/voiceless opposition as in d/t and g/k.
For specifics on these languages, including links and/or references to publications and manuscripts, click on the following, in descending order of importance:
Nunggubuyu (Wubuy) & Ngandi & Anindilyakwa & Ngalakan
Mara & Warndarang
Ritharngu & Dhuwal & Dharlwangu
Jingili (Djingulu) & Ngarnga & Warumungu
Publications involving multiple Australian languages, and articles and reviews based on works by others, are listed below.
book
1978b Linguistic diffusion in Arnhem Land. Canberra: AIAS.
http://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-001M-0000-001A-2952-0
http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/117642
articles
*1997b Lost wax: abrupt replacement of key morphemes in Australian agreement complexes, Diachronica 14(2):197-232.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/dia.14.2.02hea
1991b Pragmatic disguise in pronominal‑affix paradigms. In: Frans Plank, ed., Paradigms: The economy of inflection, 75-89. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
1990 Verbal inflection and macro‑subgroupings of Australian languages: The search for conjugation markers in non‑Pama‑Nyungan. In: Philip Baldi, ed., Linguistic change and reconstruction methodology, 403-417. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
1987b Story of *-n-: *CV- vs. *CV-n- noun-class prefixes in Australian languages. In: Donald Laycock & Werner Winter (eds.), A world of language: Papers presented to Professor S.A. Wurm on his 65th birthday, 233-43. (Pacific Linguistics, C-100). Canberra: Australian National University, Dept. of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific Studies.
DOI:10.15144/PL-C100 (volume)
(soon to be online, http://sealang.net/archives/pl/, search under title = World of, scroll to p. 233)
*1981a A case of intensive lexical diffusion: Arnhem Land, Australia. Language 57(2):335‑67.
DOI: 10.2307/413694
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/413694.pdf
1980a Dyirbal ergativity: Counter‑rejoinder to Dixon. Linguistics 18(5-6):505‑21.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/ling.1980.18.5-6.505
*1979a Is Dyirbal ergative?. Linguistics 17(5-6):401‑63.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/ling.1979.17.5-6.401
1979b Diffusional linguistics in Australia: Problems and prospects. In: S. Wurm, ed., Australian linguistic studies, 395‑418. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
1976e Substantival hierarchies: Addendum to Silverstein. In: R. M. W. Dixon, ed., Grammatical categories in Australian languages, 172‑90. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.
1976f Ergative/accusative typologies in morphology and syntax. In: R. M. W. Dixon, ed., Grammatical categories in Australian languages, 599‑611. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.
1976g Simple and compound verbs: Conjugation by auxiliaries in Australian verbal systems: northeast Arnhem Land. In: R. M. W. Dixon, ed., Grammatical categories in Australian languages, 735‑40. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.
reviews
2015 Ponsonnet, Maia. The language of emotions: The case of Dalabon (Australia). Anthropological Linguistics 57(2):225-228.
2004 Harvey, Mark. A Grammar of Gaaguju. Anthropological Linguistics 46(1):121-2.
2002 Simpson, Jane, David Nash, Mary Laughren, Peter Austin, & Barry Alpher, eds. Forty years on: Ken Hale and Australian languages. Anthropological Linguistics 44(2):200-1.
1991 Alpher, Barry. Yir-Yoront lexicon: Sketch and dictionary of an Australian language. Anthropological Linguistics 33(1):94-6.
1988 Blake, Barry. Australian Aboriginal grammar. Journal of Linguistics 24:257.
1984 Dixon, R. M. W. & Barry Blake, eds. Handbook of Australian languages, II. Language 60(2):465‑66. [book notice]
DOI: 10.2307/413679
http://www.jstor.org/stable/413679
1984 von Brandenstein, Carl G. Names and substance of the Australian subsection system. Language 60(2):466‑67. [book notice]
DOI: 10.2307/413679
http://www.jstor.org/stable/413679
1982 Dixon, R. M. W. The languages of Australia. Journal of Linguistics 18:189‑94.
1982 Dixon, R. M. W. & Barry Blake, eds. Handbook of Australian languages, I. Journal of Linguistics 18(1):194‑97.
1979 Dixon, R. M. W. A grammar of Yidiɲ. Language 55(3):706-8.
10.2307/413334
http://www.jstor.org/stable/413334
[last update Nov 2017]