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Every language in the world has yawarra madlhantyi ‘bad words’ which should not be used if we are aiming to be polite, and Diyari is no exception. In an earlier post (here), we mentioned the word nhari ‘dead’, but as Reuther points out in his Dictionary (in entry 209) it should only be used about non-humans, like animals or plants:
[The phrase] kana nari ‘dead man’ was regarded as jaura madlentji ‘bad words’, and offensive to [loved ones] left behind. The descriptive, nari ‘dead’, was applied only in the case of dead animals or of dried up plants, trees and shrubs. One experiences time and again that the Aborigines would like to have [the term] nari unused as much as possible.
As we noted in the earlier post, there are various specific terms to refer to people whose children or parents have passed away. In Diyari, polite expressions are called yawarra miltyamiltya ‘soft words’.
Another area that is considered impolite is talk about bodily functions that are carried out in private. For example, the verb kipara-rna ‘to urinate, pee’ should only be used to speak about animals, and for human beings the expression malthiri-rna should be used instead — this is made up of malthi ‘cool’, the ending -ri- which means ‘to become’, and the verb ending –rna, so it literally means ‘to become cool’. This indirect polite expression is also used in other neighbouring languages, like Arabana and Wangkanguru.
An example of the use of this polite expression can be found in a story that Ben Murray once told. He was describing how he found two lost children by following the tracks and signs of where they had been. He says about the lost little girl:
ngathu thidna nhayiyi, wardayari nhani malthirini
‘I saw the track where she had relieved herself’
This is made up of the following words:
- ngathu — ‘I’ (used for the subject of the sentence)
- thidna — ‘foot, track’
- nhayiyi — ‘see’, made up of the root nhayi-rna ‘to see’ and the ending -yi indicating ‘present tense, something happening now’
- wardayari — ‘where’ (some speakers also say wirdirdi)
- nhani — ‘she’
- malthirini — ‘had urinated, had become cool’, made up of malthi ‘cool’, -ri- ‘become’ and –ni ‘happened before and was completed’ (note that this ending can only be used if the subject of the action is different from the subject of the main action — in this case ‘she’ is different from ‘I’)
Finally, here is another example of politeness, but one involving social relationships. Diyari has an ending –mara that is added to kinship terms to refer to a group of people, at least one of whom is called by the others using that term. For example, ngandri means ‘mother’ and ngandrimara is ‘a group consisting of mother and her children’ (another example would be kadnhinimara ‘grandmother and her grandchildren’ from kadnhini ‘mother’s mother, daughter’s daughter’). Now when it comes to brothers and sisters, Diyari has separate words kaku ‘elder sister’, and nhiyi ‘elder brother’ but only one term for younger brothers and sisters, namely ngathata. Now the term ngathatamara ‘group of people at least one of whom is called ngathata by the others’ can be used to refer to a group or brothers, or sisters, or a mixed group of brothers and sisters. However, when you are speaking about a group of brothers or sisters to your older brother you should say nhiyimara, not ngathatamara, because using the expression based on the term for younger ones is considered to be impolite, and an insult to the older brother.
Ngayana Diyari Yawarra Yathayilha 