Diyari has lots of words for describing the human body, which often don’t cover exactly the same areas as their English equivalents. Today we are going to focus on two: mara ‘hand’ and thidna ‘foot’.
The word mara is often translated as ‘hand’ but it is also used to refer to the fingers and thumbs as well. Some of the digits have a different name:
- mara ngandri is your thumb (ngandri means ‘mother’ so mara ngandri is ‘mother of the hand’)
- mara wutyu is your pointing (index) finger (wutyu means ‘long and thin’). This can also be called mara ngapiri, where ngapiri means ‘father’, so ‘father of the hand’
- mara thati is your middle finger (thati means ‘middle’)
- mara waka is your little (pinkie) finger (waka means ‘small’)
- there is no separate term for what we call the ring finger in English (Dieri people never wore rings, traditionally, of course)
Alongside the hand and fingers themselves we have the following (note the combinations with other body parts here):
- mara parlku is your wrist (parlku means ‘body, flesh’)
- mara mudlha is your fingertip (mudlha means ‘nose’)
- mara pirri is your fingernail (pirri means ‘sharp point’)
- mara mandra is your palm (mandra means ‘stomach’)
- mara thuku is the top or back of your hand (thuku means ‘back’)
- mara murru is dirt or dried rubbish on your hand (murru means ‘encrustation’, so milki murru is ‘sleepdust’, where milki is ‘eye’ and mudlha murru means ‘dried snot’, where mudlha is ‘nose’)
- mara warra means ‘five’ (warra means ‘half’, so half the fingers)
- mara partyarna means ‘ten’ (partyarna means ‘all’, so all the fingers)
Let’s look at thidna now — it is usually translated as ‘foot’ or ‘feet’ but like mara it is also used to refer to the toes as well. Again, we have various names:
- thidna ngandri is your big toe (ngandri is ‘mother’, as indicated above for mara ngandri ‘thumb’)
- thidna ngapiri is your middle toe (the longest one) (ngapiri is ‘father’ again)
- thidna waka is your little toe (waka means ‘small’)
- other toes don’t have a special name.
Just as we saw for mara, alongside the foot and toes themselves we have the following (note the combinations with other body parts here):
- thidna parlku is your ankle (parlku means ‘body, flesh’)
- thidna mudlha is your tiptoes (mudlha means ‘nose’)
- thidna pirri is your toenail (pirri means ‘sharp point’)
- thidna mandra is the sole of your foot (mandra means ‘stomach’)
- thidna thuku is the top of your foot (thuku means ‘back’)
- thidna murru is dirt or dried rubbish on your foot, so toejam (murru means ‘encrustation’, so milki murru is ‘sleepdust’, where milki is ‘eye’ and mudlha murru means ‘dried snot’, where mudlha is ‘nose’)
- thidna warta is the heel of your foot (warta means ‘butt, bottom part’ as in pathara warta ‘butt of a coolibah tree’)
As you can see, Diyari has lots of terminology here, and lots of combinations of different body parts (like thidna mandra for sole of the foot, literally ‘foot stomach’) that help us understand how Dieri people see and describe the world around them.
If you want to practise the terms we introduced today, you could print out or copy the pictures above and write in the Diyari language terms for their parts.
Ngayana Diyari Yawarra Yathayilha 