Darkinyung recognition

http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/7745

Darkiñung Recognition An Analysis of the Historiography for the Aborigines from the Hawkesbury-Hunter Ranges to the Northwest of Sydney: [commonly written with English characters as ‘Darkinung’, Darkinyung or Darkinjung]
Authors:	Ford, Geoffrey Eric – 1939

Threlkeld: Waiting for Biraban

Waiting for Biraban: Lancelot Threlkeld and the ‘Chibcha Phenomenon’ in Australian Missionary Linguistics

Authors: Wafer, Jim¹; Carey, Hilary²

Source: Language & History, Volume 54, Number 2, November 2011 , pp. 112-139(28)

Abstract:

This paper is a historical and linguistic introduction to some of the missionary translations made by the Reverend Lancelot Threlkeld (1788–1859) into the language (sometimes called ‘Awabakal’) of the Hunter River–Lake Macquarie region of Australia’s east coast. It focuses in particular on Threlkeld’s shorter texts, including his ‘Selections from the Scriptures’, which is the earliest published scripture translation into an Australian language. The paper places Threlkeld and his Indigenous collaborator Biraban in their local historical context, and also in the broader context of missionary linguistics. It considers some unique features of this genre, and focuses on cases where missionary compositions provide the only substantial records of an extinct language (the ‘Chibcha phenomenon’). Such cases raise the question of reliability, which we propose can be tested. We use as our example a grammatical feature, the subordinator =pa, to determine the extent to which Threlkeld’s construction of subordinate clauses was idiomatic. We conclude that, in spite of a small number of anomalies, which are probably errors, Threlkeld’s usage appears to have been remarkably consistent with what we know about the functioning of such clauses in Australian languages in general.

Language and History

The next two upcoming issues of Language and History contain papers about the history of work on Aboriginal languages.

Contents

 

Editorial

        William B. McGregor

 

Articles

 

Waiting for Biraban: Lancelot Threlkeld and the ‘Chibcha phenomenon’ in Australian missionary linguistics

        Jim Wafer & Hilary M. Carey

George Augustus Robinson and the documentation of languages of south-eastern New South Wales

        Harold Koch

On the margins of Pacific Linguistics: P.A. Lanyon-Orgill

        Ross Clark

 

Two further papers were to have appeared in this issue, but for logistic reasons have been held off until the next issue, 55/1:

 

Daisy Bates’ documentations of Kimberley languages

        William B. McGregor

Gaps, transitions, adjoining, embedding: Kenneth Hale on the reanalysis and grammaticalization of the relative clause

        Sylvia Anne Mackie

Ngarrindjeri

Corinne Bannister: A Longitudinal Study of Ngarrindjeri. University of Sydney Honours Thesis

The Governor’s Wombat

Early history of an Australian marsupial:

http://www.eupjournals.com/doi/abs/10.3366/anh.2007.34.2.207

Louis J. Pigott and Leslie Jessop

Citation Information. Volume 34, Page 207-218 DOI 10.3366/anh.2007.34.2.207, e-ISSN 0260-9541, Available Online October 2007.

Abstract

This paper gives an account of the European discovery of an Australian marsupial, the common wombat Vombatus ursinus, with particular reference to the first complete wombat specimen to reach Europe, which survives in The Hancock Museum, Newcastle upon Tyne. The involvement of colonial officials, navigators, explorers, naturalists and artists is discussed.

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.

Recent work by Heidi Kneebone

• Heidi Kneebone and Peter Muhlhausler: 19th Missionary notions and practices of literacy. Soon to be available through Routledge.
• Heidi-Marie Kneebone, University of Adelaide Honours thesis. The language of the chosen view. (link goes to University of Adelaide DSpace archive, and includes table of contents).

Papers by Peter Austin

Several new papers are on Peter Austin's web site at http://www.hrelp.org/aboutus/staff/index.php?cd=pa
Austin, Peter in press ‘Survival of Languages’ in Emily F. Shuckburgh (ed.) Survival: Darwin College Lectures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://www.hrelp.org/aboutus/staff/peter_austin/AustinDarwinLecture.pdf

Austin, Peter in press ‘The Gamilaraay (Kamilaroi) Language, northern New South Wales — A Brief History of Research’ in William McGregor (ed.) History of Research on Australian Languages. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. http://www.hrelp.org/aboutus/staff/peter_austin/AustinGamil.pdf

Austin, Peter 2006 Article 5040 ‘Languages of the World: Gamilaraay’ in Keith Brown (ed.) International Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd edition. Oxford: Elsevier. http://www.hrelp.org/aboutus/staff/peter_austin/Austin5040.pdf

Austin, Peter 2006 Article 5042 ‘Languages of the World: Jiwarli’ in Keith Brown (ed.) International Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd edition. Oxford: Elsevier. http://www.hrelp.org/aboutus/staff/peter_austin/Austin5042.pdf

Austin, Peter 2006 Article 1711 ‘Countries and Language – Australia’ in Keith Brown (ed.) International Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd edition. Oxford: Elsevier. http://www.hrelp.org/aboutus/staff/peter_austin/Austin1711.pdf 

Putting Herbert Basedow back in focus: the 1928 expedition to Arnhem Land

http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&se=gglsc&d=5008437895 Australian Aboriginal Studies 2004.