Language books: Noongar.

Kiangardarup has a post on Noongar language books.

Many Rivers Language Centre

From their web site:

Established in 2004, Many Rivers Aboriginal Language Centre (M.R.A.L.C.) provides strategic support for Aboriginal communities of the northern and central coasts of NSW who want to revitalise their languages. MRALC is a regional language centre that aims to support the following languages: Awabakal - Wonnarua, Bundjalung, Darkinyung, Dhanggati, Kattang (Birrbay & Warrmay), and Yaygirr - Yaegl.  Click here to view map.

Like other regional language centres, MRALC conducts research on several Aboriginal languages and supports communities in their efforts to learn and teach their languages. Regional Aboriginal Language Centres have until recently only existed in more remote areas of Australia, for example Katherine Regional Aboriginal Language Centre, and Wangka Maya in Port Headland. There have been language programs elsewhere including NSW but they have tended to work with one local language, or closely related dialects, for example the Yuwaalaraay Language Program based in Walgett supports Yuwaalaraay, Yuwaalayaay and Gamilaraay. MRALC has an Advisory Group made up of representatives from all languages, and a Specialist Group of Elders, linguists and teachers who assist as needed. MRALC employs a coordinator - linguist, language researchers - teachers and teacher - linguists.

 The Centre has an impressive publication plan (the first volume on the Hunter River and Lake Macquarie language is out).

Wiradjuri Language Development Project

Site with information about Wiradjuri language and culture, including links for the purchase of language materials.

McGregor, Nekes and Worms

Anthropos 102 includes an article by Bill McGregor on the editing of Nekes and Worms’ Australian Languages. The abstract can be found here.

Wulguru

Salvage study of the language historically spoken around Townsville, by Mark Donohue.

Linguistlist book announcement is here, and includes the following blurbː

Wulguru was a Pama-Nyungan language typical of the sort found on the northeast coast of Australia; it ceased to be spoken before it was properly documented. Wulguru was spoken in the area around present day Townsville, and also on the islands extending out to Palm Island.

The sketch that is presented here has been assembled from the available data, based mainly on a journal kept by Charles Price, a resident of Townsville in the late 19th century; the current work is as complete a record as we are likely to have.

Wulguru had a vowel-length distinction; as a result of initial consonant loss, vowels could begin words; further, there were monosyllabic words. Wulguru marked syntactic relations by means of case marking; the ergative showed allomorphy based on syllable count as well as final consonant identity. There were at least three different verbal conjugations, possibly as many as five or six. Verbal agreement was optional, though this might represent second position clitics. The only textual material consists of a few short phrases, as well as the transcription of some songs, and the main text that we have for Wulguru, a translation of The Lord’s Prayer. It becomes apparent (after back-translation) that it was not Price himself who assembled the prayer translation, but probably a Wulguru speaker who makes a secret cry against the white invasion of the area.

The link includes a link to the publisher, but their “new books” link doesn’t seem to work at present.

Ethnography of Kinship

Speaking Kunjen : An ethnography of Oykangand kinship and communication, by Bruce Sommer

Linguistlist book announcementː

This book examines the interface between language and kinship in the Australian Aboriginal language Kunjen which is spoken in the Cape York region of northern Queensland. The author shows that kinship relations play a major role in determining the kinds of linguistic interactions that are appropriate for different groups of individuals. The social meaning of utterances depends more than anything else on kinship and one’s kin relations with those one communicates with. The rules of interpretation used by Kunjen speakers to mediate kinship and language are as complex and as pervasive as the grammatical rules of the language itself, and help to reveal aspects of linguistic structure that might not otherwise be obvious. Conversely, kinship structures can be illuminated, if not revealed, by the study of language use.

(Note that book URL of http://www.pacling.com/catalogue/582.html doesn’t work at present).

Ozbib update

OZBib

A linguistic bibliography of Aboriginal Australia

and the Torres Strait Islands

SUPPLEMENT 1999-2006

Compiled by Geraldine Triffitt

Published by Mulini Press, Canberra

OZBIB was compiled by Lois Carrington and Geraldine Triffitt and published by Pacific Linguistics in 1999. Its aim was to provide a full bibliographical listing of all published materials and theses on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages and linguistics. This Supplement covers the period from July 1999 to September 2006 plus addenda from OZBIB. There are both language and subject indexes to the bibliography.

OZBIB is broad in scope. It lists both theoretical and applied linguistics works. It covers the description and analysis of languages, dictionaries, grammars, works on bilingual education, language policy, language use in courts of law, the experiences of language speakers and the linguistic output of language centres. Included in the Indigenous languages are creoles and Aboriginal English.

Available from

Naviti Documentation, PO Box 537, MAWSON, ACT 2607
No Credit Card facilities available

$30 + postage and handling.

Postage rates: Australia $5.50: Overseas air mail $10-$17 depending on destination

Geraldine Triffitt is a librarian with linguistic qualifications from the Australian National University. She worked as Bibliographer (Linguistics) and Collection Manager (Linguistics) at AIAS and AIATSIS Library from 1986 to 1997.

Nekes and Worms’ Australian Languages

Somehow I forgot to post that Bill McGregor’s edition of Australian Languages (Nekes and Worms) is out. Here is the publisher’s blurb.

Australian Languages is the magnum opus of Hermann Nekes and Ernest Worms, two missionary linguists who undertook pioneering investigations of a number of languages spoken in Dampier Land and the Kimberley (far north west of Australia) and to a lesser extent further afield, in Queensland and New South Wales during the 1930s and 1940s. Presenting a wealth of information on many now extinct or moribund languages, the work is of enormous value to descendants of speakers as well as to linguists, including Australianists, descriptive linguists, typologists, and historians of linguistics.

The original text of Australian Languages, which appeared previously only on micro-film, is divided into five parts: a grammar outlining some of the major features of Australian languages (with particular focus on the Nyulnyulan languages traditionally spoken on Dampier Land); an English finder list; an alphabetically arranged wordlist covering a variety of languages; a separate wordlist of Dyirbal (North Queensland), and a small number of texts.

William B. McGregor has revised, annotated and updated the material. An accompanying CD-ROM contains a digitized facsimile of the entire original micro-film with links to an electronic version of the book, a user-friendly database version of the dictionaries and other accompanying material.

It really is a very impressive volume.

Language of the Hunter River and Lake Macquarie

Linguistlist book announcement is here. A link to the order form can be found here.

Book description (from Linguistlist posting

This grammar and wordlist is a valuable language revitalization tool for Aboriginal people of the Hunter River and Lake Macquarie Region of New South Wales. It will appeal to anyone who is interested in the Aboriginal Languages of Australia. It is primarily based on the work of the Reverend Lancelot Threlkeld, who, in the first half of the nineteenth century, wrote a comprehensive account of the language taught to him by Biraban. The evidence from archival sources suggests that the language described by Threlkeld as ‘The language of the Hunter River and Lake Macquarie’ was spoken by people now known as Awabakal, Kuringgai, Wonnarua, and perhaps Geawegal. Amanda Lissarrague presents a clear and succinct interpretation of the phonology and grammar of the language in terms that are accessible to both the layman and the specialist. This work also contains a vocabulary written in a practical spelling system, and a database of example sentences. Muurrbay is a nonprofit Aboriginal organization that supports the coastal languages of northern and central N.S.W. through its auspicing of the Many Rivers Aboriginal Language Centre. The grammar is © Wonnarua Nation Aboriginal Corporation. Please email enquiries to muurrbay@westnet.com.au.