The Diyari translation by Reuther and Strehlow in 1897 of the New Testament of the Christian Bible contains the verses known as The Lord’s Prayer. They appear in Matthew Chapter 6 verses 9 to 13, as follows, written in the missionary spelling:
13. Ja wata ngaianina wontjanilani wirilkamai, a-ai, ngaianina madlentjani kulkamai; Ngangau jinkangu milila nganai ja ngurula ja pirnala ngurali. Amen.”
We can rewrite this in the modern spelling as follows:
We can also assign meanings to each of the words in the prayer, and give the lines a literal translation:
yaruya
ngatyiyanawu
like that
you all pray
‘You all pray like this!’
ngapiri
ngayanirni
yini
pariwilpanhi
ngamalha
wapaya
father
our
you
in the sky
live
do
‘Our father, you live in the sky’
tharla
yingkarni
kurlikirri
pantyiyathimayi
name
your
clean
may become
‘May your name become clean’
mirlilha
yingkarni
wakarayathimayi
place of followers
your
may come
‘May your place of followers come’
yathapatharrirna
yingkarni
pantyiyathimayi
supporting
you
may become
‘May it become that (people) support you’
wardaru
pariwilpanhi
yaruya
pakarna
mithanhi
how
in the sky
like that
also
on the ground
‘Just like in the sky also like that on the ground’
puka
ngayanirni
ngayaningu
karari
yingkiyamayi
vegetable.food
our
to us
today
give
‘Give our vegetable food to us today!’
madlhantyi
ngayanirni
waramayi
bad
our
throw away
‘Throw away our badness!’
wardaru
pakarna
ngayani
karna
nguruya
madlhantyi
how
also
we
person
to other
bad
wara-lha
wapa-ya
throw
do
‘Just like we also habitually throw away the badness of other people.’
ya
wata
ngayaninha
wantyanilhanhi
wirrilkamayi
and
not
us
into the place of trying
go in with
‘And do not take us into places of trying!’
a’ayi
ngayaninha
madlhantyanhi
kurlkamayi
no
us
from bad
save
‘No, save us from badness!’
ngangawu
yingkangu
mirlilha
nganayi
?? because
to you
place of followers
is
‘Because(?) your place of followers exists.
ya
ngurrulha
ya
pirnalha
ngurrali
and
strength
and
greatness
always
‘And strength and greatness for ever.’
amen
Amen
‘Amen.’
Notes
thanks to Fritz Schweiger for prompting me to present this material for people interested in the Lord’s Prayer, and for picking up errors in the first draft.
the title of today’s post is “Prayer Words” made up of ngatyi- ‘to pray’ plus the ending -ni which creates a noun ‘prayer’. The word yawarra means ‘word, language, speech’.
line 1 – the verb ngatyiyanawu is in the order (imperative) form containing the ending -ya-, with the ending –ni– that indicates speaking to many people, plus the -wu ending that is usually occurs in shouted speech
line 2 – the Diyari form for ‘our father’ uses the ngayani which is the exclusive second person pronoun, ‘we all excluding you’, presumably because the prayer is addressed to God
line 3 – the missionaries extended the term kurlikirri ‘clean’ to mean ‘holy’. They also used the ending -yathimayi to express a wish, but it never occurs in the spoken language
line 5 – the verb yatha- means ‘to scold, dress someone down’, while -pa- is the altruistic ending meaning ‘do something for the benefit of someone other than the subject’, here indicated as yingkarni ‘for you’, so literally the verb plus pronoun means ‘continuously scold someone for the benefit of you’
line 7 – the noun puka means ‘vegetable food’ (bread, seeds, greens) in contrast to nganthi ‘meat food’
line 8 – this seems to be a literal translation of ‘take away evil’.
line 9 – the verb waralha wapaya is the habitual form of ‘throw’, that is ‘throw all the time, every day’
line 10 – the verb wirrilka ‘go with’ implies that the subject (God) enters somewhere with the object ‘us’ (which is not controlling the motion)
line 12 – a form like ngangawu which is used by the missionaries for ‘because, rather’ does not occur in my Diyari recordings. It occurs 30 times in example sentences in Reuther’s dictionary of Diyari, always in the second sentence in a sequence. He did not include a headword entry for this word, which is strange given that he has entries for all other words in the dictionary examples.
line s 12-13 – this is the doxology, which appears in English as ‘For thine is kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever’.
Reuther. J. G. & Carl Strehlow. 1897. Testamenta marra. Jesuni Christuni ngantjani jaura ninaia karitjimalkana wonti Dieri jaurani. Adelaide: G. Auricht.
This week, 2nd to 9th July 2017 is National NAIDOC Week. The theme this year is “Our Languages Matter”. Around Australia, there will be national celebrations of the importance, resilience and richness of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages.
On the Dieri Yawarra blog this week we present a traditional story in the Dieri language — this is the only traditional story that was able to be recorded in the 1970s from the language teachers who grew up in Dieri country. All other Dieri stories have been lost because of the impact of Christian missionaries from the 1860s onwards.
Here is Part Five and the end of the story (click to see Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four). First we give the words in Dieri and then a translation into English. If you want to study the structure of each sentence in this part of the story you can download a PDF that gives the word-by-word translation and grammatical structure.
“Well, are you alright?” (the older brothers asked the younger brother)
“Yes, I am alright.” (the younger brother replied)
“(I’m) strong now.”
“Where did you see (them)?” (they asked him)
“Over that way I saw the fire burning.”
“Let’s go over there.”
“On the left there I saw the fire burning.” (said the younger brother)
Then they went (along) and slept for some days.
“It’s here that I saw them.” (said the younger brother)
“There is nothing here.” (they said)
(They) dug the ground (where the fire had been).
“This (campsite) is old.”
(They) slept and got up.
Then, “This is hot ground” (they said)
“These hot ashes are one day old.”
(They) went on again, sleeping as they went along.
“This is it here!”
“These hot ashes are a little hotter.”
(They) went on foot again.
“This is it here!” (they shouted)
“It’s very hot.”
“These coals are glowing alright.”
“This fire has just been burning.”
So they went on.
“This is the camp!”
“(I) saw this camp from far away.” (said the younger brother)
(They) kept going, going to the camp where the sister and brother-in-law were getting wood to make a camp to sleep.
So they came to the camp as the brother-in-law was making a fire (and) making a windbreak.
“Well, why have (you) come?” (he asked them)
“You left this boy, bringing him along (and) leaving him.” (said the older brothers)
“Why?” (they asked)
Then (they) hit them two there, the two elder brothers hit the sister and the young one, young brother-in-law.
(They) killed (both of them).
That’s the finish.
This week, 2nd to 9th July 2017 is National NAIDOC Week. The theme this year is “Our Languages Matter”. Around Australia, there will be national celebrations of the importance, resilience and richness of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages.
On the Dieri Yawarra blog this week we present a traditional story in the Dieri language — this is the only traditional story that was able to be recorded in the 1970s from the language teachers who grew up in Dieri country. All other Dieri stories have been lost because of the impact of Christian missionaries from the 1860s onwards.
Here is Part Four of the story (click to see Part One, Part Two and Part Three). First we give the words in Dieri and then a translation into English. If you want to study the structure of each sentence in this part of the story you can download a PDF that gives the word-by-word translation and grammatical structure.
(They) slept to go in the morning, going before the sun had come up over there
They went.
(They) slept on their journey for some days.
Then (they) saw (something).
“What’s that?”
“That’s (our) younger brother”
“(Our) brother-in-law and sister left (him) long ago.”
“He’s our little younger brother!”
“What shall we do with him?”
“He has become all white.”
“The birds have shat on him.”
“He is sitting all white at the top of the tree.”
“What shall we do?”
“He is right at the very top.”
“What are you?”
“I am left-handed.”
“But I am right-handed.”
One of them said.
“Well, let’s make this string something or other.”
“Let’s make it long.”
Then the two of them threw the string, throwing (it) to the boy.
Then he caught the string.
Then he came down on the string, all white, white coming down as the two of them pulled (him) down.
Well, they got a boomerang and hit him all over.
White, faeces, bird faeces (came flying off).
“What did (our) elder sister and brother-in-law do to you?”
“They poured shit all over you, having brought you (here) to leave you as they went back.”
Then they painted (him) with fat.
Then (they) slept to go in the morning.
This week, 2nd to 9th July 2017 is National NAIDOC Week. The theme this year is “Our Languages Matter”. Around Australia, there will be national celebrations of the importance, resilience and richness of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages.
On the Dieri Yawarra blog this week we present a traditional story in the Dieri language — this is the only traditional story that was able to be recorded in the 1970s from the language teachers who grew up in Dieri country. All other Dieri stories have been lost because of the impact of Christian missionaries from the 1860s onwards.
Here is Part Three of the story (click to see Part One and Part Two). First we give the words in Dieri and then a translation into English. If you want to study the structure of each sentence in this part of the story you can download a PDF that gives the word-by-word translation and grammatical structure.
The boy cried as they went further and further, watching them in the distance from the top of the tree.
Then he saw.
“Oh, that must be the fire burning far off.”
In the night he saw the light of the fire burning.
In the morning (he) saw the smoke.
“That is my sister and brother-in-law’s fire burning far off.”
At first (he) saw their fire close by where they were sleeping as they went along, watching the smoke in the morning.
Then he could not see the fire any longer, because they had gone too far away as he sat there for many days.
The birds poured shit all over him at the top of the tree, the eaglehawk and crow pouring it over him, so that he sat all white now.
Then (he) couldn’t see any more.
Then the boy’s two elder brothers were walking about.
“(My) stomach is upset”
One said.
“Something must have happened to our younger brother?”
“Let’s go tomorrow to see (him).”
“Do you want to go so we can follow after (him)?”
“Yes”
They said.
This week, 2nd to 9th July 2017 is National NAIDOC Week. The theme this year is “Our Languages Matter”. Around Australia, there will be national celebrations of the importance, resilience and richness of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages.
On the Dieri Yawarra blog this week we present a traditional story in the Dieri language — this is the only traditional story that was able to be recorded in the 1970s from the language teachers who grew up in Dieri country. All other Dieri stories have been lost because of the impact of Christian missionaries from the 1860s onwards.
Here is Part Two of the story (click to see Part One). First we give the words in Dieri and then a translation into English. If you want to study the structure of each sentence in this part of the story you can download a PDF that gives the word-by-word translation and grammatical structure.
The brother-in-law took out some carpet snake (from the fire).
And cooled (it).
His wife said.
“We two are hungry, the boy and I.”
The young man answered (her).
“You two wait a while for the meat to cool down!”
Breaking up the meat, the young man began to eat (it).
Then he gave (some meat) to his wife to eat.
The elder sister gave the boy meat to eat.
Then his brother-in-law’s hand went in and took (it) out of his mouth.
Thus the boy was hungry.
Then the elder sister secretly gave (some meat) to her younger brother.
The brother-in-law took more (meat) out (of the boy’s mouth).
Then they got up to go.
Then they saw some young birds (in a nest in a box tree).
The brother-in-law told the boy to climb the box tree.
“Climb up above to the nest to get the eggs!”
Then the boy climbed but the tree went up and up (at the same time).
He went up and up at the top (of the tree).
Then the other two went away.
This week, 2nd to 9th July 2017 is National NAIDOC Week. The theme this year is “Our Languages Matter”. Around Australia, there will be national celebrations of the importance, resilience and richness of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages. As the NAIDOC website states:
The 2017 theme – Our Languages Matter – aims to emphasise and celebrate the unique and essential role that Indigenous languages play in cultural identity, linking people to their land and water and in the transmission of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history, spirituality and rites, through story and song.
On the Dieri Yawarra blog this week we present a traditional story in the Dieri language — this is the only traditional story that was able to be recorded in the 1970s from the language teachers who grew up in Dieri country. All other Dieri stories have been lost because of the impact of Christian missionaries from the 1860s onwards.
This story was recorded by Peter Austin with Leslie Russell and Rosa Warren at Maree in 1974 and checked with Rosa Warren in 1976. The first version we have of it is Story VIII that was written down by Sam Dintibana and published by H. K. Fry with the assistance of Ted Vogelsang in 1937 (in the journal Folklore volume 48).
We will publish the story in parts over the coming days this week. Here is Part One. First we give the words in Dieri and then a translation into English. If you want to study the structure of each sentence in this part of the story you can download a PDF that gives the word-by-word translation and grammatical structure.
Dieri Story — Part One
Thari ya mankarra pula nganarna wanthiyi nhuwamara.
Pula wapayi.
Ya kankuyali pakarna ngantyayi wapalha kakunhi yarla kakunhi kardinhi.
Kaku yathayi.
Yini ngamamayi ngaldrarni ngandrinhi.
Yaruya pakarna nhungkarni kardi yathayi.
Nhulu kankuyali wata ngantyayi ngamalha.
Nhawu dalkiyi pulangu ya nhungkarni ngandrinhi.
Nhawu kanku ngupara mindrirna.
Ya waparna ngupara.
Ngardanhi thana yarla wapayi.
Ya kardiyali wama ya kapirri ya kadni nandrayi.
Ngarla kankuyali windri nandrayi kartiwarru.
Kardiyali partyarna nganthi wayiyi.
Ya pakarna kankuyali wayiyi kartiwarru.
Kankuyali kartiwarru thayiyi.
Ya kardi yathayi.
Wata thayiyamayi.
Malhantyi.
Kardi mara wirrirna kankuya marnanhi.
Ya kartiwarru partyarna mandrandru dukararna.
Kankuyali wata yaniya thayirnanthu nganthi waka.
Kardi yathayi.
Walya karlkamayi, karari wama thayilha.
kankuyali wata ngantyayi.
Kanku yindrayi.
Ya mawali nganayi.
English Translation
A young man and a girl were married long ago.
They went.
And there was a boy who also wanted to go together with his elder sister and brother-in-law.
The elder sister said.
“You stay with our mother!”
His brother-in-law said the same thing.
The boy didn’t want to stay.
His disobeyed them and his mother.
The boy ran ahead.
And went ahead.
Then they all went together.
And the brother-in-law killed carpet snake, and goanna, and stumpy tail lizard.
But the boy only killed a kartiwarru lizard. [The kartiwarru is a small lizard that is not normally eaten. In his Dieri vocabulary Samuel Gason describes it as “a red-backed lizard, about 3 inches long”.]
The brother-in-law cooked all the meat.
And the boy cooked the kartiwarru lizard also.
The boy ate the kartiwarru lizard.
And the brother-in-law said.
“Don’t eat (that)!”
“(It’s) bad.”
The brother-in-law’s hand went into the boy’s mouth.
And took all the kartiwarru lizard out of (his) stomach.
“Boys shouldn’t eat small animals like this.”
The brother-in-law said.
“Wait a while to eat carpet snake (later) today.”
The boy didn’t want (to wait).
The boy cried.
And was hungry.
In English the order of words in a sentence is important and switching words around can drastically change the meaning. So:
The dog bit the man
does not mean the same thing as:
The man bit the dog
In English the subject (person or thing doing the action) comes first, the verb (action word) comes next and finally the object (person or thing affected by the action) comes at the end. In English we always have subject-verb-object.
In Dieri, the functions of the words in a sentence are indicated by the endings that they take. So, the subject of a transitive sentence (one that involves two participants) takes the ending -li or -yali while the object does not take an ending. Look at these examples:
karnali kinthala matharna warayi ‘The man bit the dog’ kinthalali karna matharna warayi ‘The dog bit the man’
Because they have different endings, we can switch the order of the words in Dieri without changing the meaning (the verb normally goes at the end of Dieri sentences):
kinthala karnali matharna warayi ‘The man bit the dog’ karna kinthalali matharna warayi ‘The dog bit the man’
So, even though the one affected comes first in these sentences we know who does the action because of the -li ending.
English allows a little bit of variation when we add things like places to describe a situation, but you cannot switch around subjects and objects without changing the meaning:
John took his sister from Adelaide to Port Augusta
John took his sister to Port Augusta from Adelaide
Here there is a shift in emphasis but the meaning is the same. If we switch the subject and object, however, the meaning changes completely:
His sister took John from Adelaide to Port Augusta
His sister took John to Port Augusta from Adelaide
Now, in Dieri there is a lot more freedom to change around word order because of the role that the endings play. For example, when Aunty Rene was asked how to say the following:
I want to teach my children my language
she said in Dieri:
ngathu ngantyayi ngakarni kupa kirringankalha ngakarni yawarra
Word-by-word this is: ‘I-subject want my child to-teach my language’
When Aunty Winnie was asked how to say the same thing, she said in Dieri:
Word-by-word this is: ‘I-subject want language to-teach my child’
(Aunty Winnie uses kupa-kupa ‘small child’, while Aunty Rene just uses kupa ‘child’. Remember that Dieri does not generally make a difference between one or more than one person or thing, so kupa means ‘child’ or ‘children’. To be more specific we can say kupa-wara ‘children’ which uses the ending -wara meaning ‘three or more’.)
So, don’t be surprised when speaking Dieri that words can occur in different orders but the meaning stays the same.
Note: The title of today’s post yathani yaruldramatha means ‘talking the same’: yathani is a noun based on the verb yatha-rna ‘to speak, talk’ while yaruldramatha means ‘same, identical’.
In Dieri the word ya ‘and’ can be used to link two words together to express the idea of ‘A and B’. For example:
kanku ya mankarra ‘boys and girls’ nganthi ya puka ‘meat and vegetable food’ mara ya thidna ‘hand and foot’
Note that this combination acts like a single unit in Dieri and so if we need to express a meaning that involves adding an ending, then we can just add it to the last word and both will be included. Here is an example:
ngapiri ngamayi kanku ya mankarranhi ‘Father is sitting with the boys and girls’ kanku ya mankarrali nganha nhayirna warayi ‘The boys and girls saw me’
Alternatively, we can add the ending to both of the elements linked by ya, as in:
ngapiri ngamayi kankunhi ya mankarranhi ‘Father is sitting with the boys and girls’ kankuyali ya mankarrali nganha nhayirna waray ‘The boys and girls saw me’
These two sentences mean the same as the previous two and it is up to you whether you add the ending to both words linked by ya or just the last one.
When we have a word identifying a person or thing (a noun) that is modified or described by an adjective, then the noun plus adjective can be linked by ya as well, as in:
nhulu nganthi karti ya ngapa marra manirna warayi ‘He got raw meat and fresh water’
Notice here that ya is linking together nganthi karti ‘raw meat’ (karti means ‘raw’) and ngapa marra ‘fresh water’ (marra means ‘fresh’ or ‘new’).
We can also link together actions words (verbs) with ya, as in:
nhawu thikayi ya muka thurarayi ‘He comes back and sleeps’ nhulu nganthi damarna wanthiyi ya thayirna wanthiyi ‘He cut up the meat and ate it long ago’
To express contrast between two ideas we can link two sentences together in Dieri with ngarla meaning ‘but’, as in:
ngathu nhinha ngantyayi ngarla wata ngathu yinanha ngantyayi ‘I like him but I don’t like you’ nganthi wapayi warliya ngarla wata ngathu wirrilha nganayi ‘I am going over to the house but I won’t go inside’
There is another useful word in Dieri that can link nouns, verbs and sentences together — it is kara which means ‘or’, as in these examples of A kara B:
kanku kara mankarra pirkiyi nhaka ‘Boys or girls are playing over there’ ngathu ngantyayi warrukathi kara karlathurra thayilha ‘I like to eat emu or wild turkey’
Notice that we can also say A kara B kara to mean ‘either A or B’ (but not both), as in:
kanku kara mankarra kara pirkiyi nhaka ‘Either boys or girls are playing over there’ ngathu ngantyayi warrukathi kara karlathurra kara thayilha ‘I like to eat either emu or wild turkey’
We can also link pronouns together with kara, as in this example which comes from a story:
waranha tyika nganayi, yini kara nganhi kara? ‘Who is wrong, either you or me?’
Notice here we have kara after both words because either I am wrong or you are wrong (but we both cannot be, according to the speaker).
Finally, kara can link together two whole sentences, as in:
nganhi wapalha nganayi kara nhingkirda ngamalha nganayi ‘Either I will go or I will stay here’
So, you can see that ya, ngarla and kara are useful little linking words in Dieri.
In 1959 the late Kenneth Hale did an interview at Hermansburg in the Northern Territory with Johannes, a Dieri man who had been born north of Marree in South Australia and who had lived on Bethesda Mission (at Killalpaninna, on Cooper Creek) until it closed in 1915. Johannes then moved to Hermansburg, but fondly remembered his own country and his family and friends still living in South Australia. He spoke to Hale in Dieri, telling him about his early life and his wish to see his family again.
Hale’s recording (a copy of which is to be found on archive tape A4604a in the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) in Canberra) is one of the earliest existing sound recordings of Dieri, and is remarkable since Johannes is very clear and fluent on the recording. Hale made 66 pages of notes of his interview and these can be found in the AIATSIS library as MS 872.
Kenneth Hale kindly gave me permission to use his recording in 1980 and I present the first one and a half minutes here, followed by a transcription and translation of what Johannes said, together with some notes on the grammar. It is hoped that this material will be especially useful for Dieri language learners who wish to study a longer story in Dieri.
Here is my analysis of what is said in Dieri. We give a sentence-by-sentence breakdown below:
Translation
I was a child. I was born at Bethesda. Then I grew up there. Then the missionaries left us all. Then we became pensioners. Then I went to Hermansburg Mission to live there. I am living here at Hermansburg until today. I always thought about my home Bethesda. I really want to go back there. I want to go back there. I want in future to see it here, to see the country again. Some of my children are down there. I want to see them. I will go in future to Marree. There some of my children live. Some of those children of mine live in Port Augusta.
Sentence by sentence discussion
1. Nganhi kupa nganarna wanthiyi. ‘I was a child long ago’ — note the distant past auxiliary wanthiyi after ngana-rna ‘to be’
2. Nganhi, Bethesdanhi kupa darnkarna wanthiyi. ‘I was born at Bethesda’ — note the location ‘at Bethesda’ is expressed by the ending -nhi on the place name. Also, in Dieri we use the expression kupa darnka-rna ‘to find a child’ to express ‘to be born’ — in traditional Dieri belief it is the mother who finds the spirit child, which is then born into the world as a baby
3. Ngardanhi nganhi pirnarirna nhaka. ‘Then I grew up there’ — here we find adjective pirna ‘big’ and the ending –ri meaning ‘to become’ so the resulting verb pirnari-rna means ‘to become big, to grow’
4. Ngardanhi ngayaninha missionary-li warararna wanthiyi. ‘Then the missionaries left us all’ — notice the word order here is a little unusual as the object ngayaninha ‘we all (not including you)’ comes before the subject missionary-li. As usual, the verb comes at the end
5. Ngardanhi ngayani pensioner pantyirna wanthiyi. ‘Then we became pensioners’ — the verb pantyi-rna ‘to become’ is used with nouns, including words from English, whereas to express ‘become’ with an adjective, we add the ending –ri- seen with pirnari-rna ‘to become big’ above
6. Ngardanhi nganhi waparna wanthiyi Hermansburg Mission nhaka ngamalha. ‘Then I went to Hermansburg Mission to live there’ — notice that with place names we don’t need to add an ending to show the place we go to (the ending -ya can optionally be added). The -lha on ngama-rna ‘to sit, live’ indicates purpose with the same subject as the previous verb (in this example it is wapa-rna ‘to go’)
7. Nganhi karariyarlu nhingkirda ngamayi Hermansburg. ‘I live here at Hermansburg until today’ — notice the word karariyarlu is made up of karari ‘today, now’ plus the endings -ya ‘to’ and -rlu ‘still, yet’ which together means ‘up till today’
8. Ngathu ngurrali ngundrarna wanthiyi ngakarni ngura Bethesda. ‘I always thought about my home Bethesda’ — be careful to pronounce ngurra meaning ‘always’ with a trilled ‘r’ sound but ngura ‘camp, home’ with a short flapped ‘r’. Also, when we use ngurra ‘always’ in a transitive sentence (one with an object and a subject) it must take the transitive subject marker -li, as in this sentence
9. Ngathu pirna ngantyarna wanthiyi nhakanhi thikalha. ‘I really want to return there’ — to emphasise a verb we use pirna ‘big’ so pirna ngantya-rna means ‘to really want’
10. Ngathu mirluru ngantyayi nhakanhitha thikalha. ‘I really want to go back there’ — the word nhakanhitha is made up of nhaka ‘there’ plus -nhi ‘to’ and -tha ‘old information, something mentioned previously’ (in this example ‘there’ refers to Bethesda, which was mentioned by Johannes before)
11. Ngathu wata ngantyayi nhinha wararalha. ‘I did not want to leave it’ — here we find nhinha ‘him (object)’ used to refer back to Bethesda
12. Ngathu ngantyayi thangkuparna nhingkarda nhayilha, nhakaldra mitha nhayilha. ‘I want in future to see it here, to see the country again’ — the word thangkuparna usually means ‘tomorrow’ but Johannes seems to be using it to mean ‘in future’, not just limited to the day after today
13. Ngakarni kupa parlpa nhaka nganayi ngarirnarlu. ‘Some of my children are down there’ — the word ngarirnarlu means ‘down’ and it is used here to refer to places to the south of Hermansburg, namely Marree and Port Augusta
14. Ngathu ngantyayi thananha nhayilha. ‘I want to see them’ — here thananha ‘them (object)’ refers back to the children
15. Nganhi thangkuparna nhingkirdanhi wapalha nganayi Marree. ‘I will go in future to Marree’ — again, Johannes uses thangkuparna to mean ‘in future’ in general. Notice also that he uses nhingkirdanhi ‘to here (close by the speaker)’ to refer to Marree, probably because it is considered much closer to Hermansburg then where his other children are, namely Port Augusta
16. Nhaka ngakarni kupa parlpa ngamayi. ‘Some of my children live there’ — in this sentence nhaka ‘there (far from speaker and hearer)’ is pointing to Port Augusta
17. Thana kupa parlpa ngakarni ngamayi Port Augusta. ‘Some of those children of mine live in Port Augusta’ — notice that the order of the words kupa parlpa ‘some children’ and ngakarni ‘my’ is different from what we saw in the previous examples above where ngakarni ‘my’ comes before kupa ‘child’ and parlpa ‘some’. This is because we have thana ‘they all, those’ before kupa here so the order must be ‘those child some my’ while in English we say ‘some of those children of mine’
Note: Many thanks to Kenneth Hale for making his recording available to me; he is not responsible for any mistakes here.
In all human languages, speakers can choose to speak quickly (in Dieri nhurru-nhurru yathayi) or to speak slowly (in Dieri marnka yathayi). Typically, in ordinary conversation with other people who also speak the same language as us we use a quicker more colloquial style, and when talking to others who can’t understand well, or to emphasise something, we can speak more slowly. Dieri speakers can do the same thing, and in a previous blog post we presented some examples of this from Luise Hercus’ recordings of the late Alec Edwards.
In today’s post we focus on some of the common features of Dieri fast speech.
We saw in a previous blog post that Dieri uses auxiliary verbs to express locations in time when an action or event takes place. Here are the forms discussed earlier:
Verb
Auxiliary
Function
waparna
wanthiyi
‘went long ago’ — a situation that took place a long time ago
waparna
wapaya
‘went a while ago’ — a situation that took place some time ago, perhaps one or two months ago
waparna
wapayi
‘always goes’ — a situation that habitually takes place
waparna
parraya
‘went a couple of weeks ago’ — a situation that took place one or two weeks ago
wapalha
wirriyi
‘went yesterday’ — a situation that took place yesterday
waparna
warayi
‘went earlier’ — a situation that took place earlier today
wapalha
nganayi
‘will go’ — a situation that will take place later
In fast speech the auxiliary verbs get mashed onto the end of the main verb. Here are two examples — the first one involves the future auxiliary nganayi and comes from Alec Edwards (recorded by Luise Hercus). Listen to this recording of the sentence nganhi yathalha nganayi thanangu ‘I will speak to them’:
Notice that yathalha ‘speak’ and nganayi ‘will’ sound squashed together. This is clear when Alec repeats the sentence slowly:
The second example involves the distant past auxiliary wanthiyi and comes from a recording of Aunty Winnie Naylon made by Greg Wilson. Listen to this recording of the sentence nhani pirkirna wanthiyi tyaputyapu schoolanhi ‘She played ball long ago at school’:
So pirki-rna wanthiyi sounds like pirkirnanthiyi. A similar effect occurs with the recent past auxiliary warayi so that in fast speech pirki-rna warayi ‘played recently’ sounds like pirkirnaurayi. Here is another example that Greg Wilson recorded with Aunty Rene of her saying yini wakararna warayi pinarru ‘You just came old man’. Notice that wakararna warayi gets run together:
Interestingly, the policeman Samuel Gason published a book in 1874 called “THE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE DIEYERIE TRIBE OF AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES” (a reproduction of the book can be seen on this website). It includes some Dieri words and expressions and, interestingly, he recorded the fast conversational forms of verbs and did not write down the slower clearer forms. So his materials include:
“I shall love — Athooyoralauni” for ngathu yuralha nganayi
“I did or have loved — Athooyooranaori” for ngathu yurarna warayi
“Has asked — Achanaori” for ngantyarna warayi
Notice that Gason’s spelling is not very accurate and he seems not to have heard the sound ng at the beginning of Dieri words!
The sequence ngathu ‘I’ (transitive subject) followed by yinha ‘you’ (transitive object) is often squashed together so instead of ngathu yinha nhayiyi ‘I see you’ in fast speech we would say something that sounds like ngathinha nhayiyi
In a future blog post we will present some stories recorded with speakers in the 1970s that clearly show these fast speech conversational features.
Ngayana Diyari Yawarra Yathayilha 