Advanced: more about “this” and “that” and “these” and “those” in Diyari

In the previous blog posts here and here, we learned that in the Diyari language there many ways to say “this” and “that” depending on what you are talking about or who you are talking to. These are the words we looked at:

nhaniya	‘this one (female)’
nhawuya	‘this one (not female)’
nhaniwa	‘that one (female)’
nhawuwa	‘that one (not female)’
pulaya	‘these two’
pulawa	‘those two’
thanaya	‘these three or more’
thanawa	‘those three or more’

Listed above are the basic terms that we use in sentences like ‘… is me’ or ‘… is going’. In other contexts, different terms are used, built upon these basic terms. Here is the full set that is found in Diyari (see my Grammar of Diyari for more details — it is free to download here).

For “this” and “these”:

Function	this one female	this one not female	these two	these three or more
active subject	nhandruya	nhuluya	pulaliya	thanaliya
object	nhanhaya	nhinhaya	pulanhaya	thananhaya
possessor	nhangkarniya	nhungkarniya	pularniya	thanarniya
with, to	nhangkanguya	nhungkanguya	pulanguya	thananguya
from	nhangkangundruya	nhungkangundruya	pulangundruya	thanangundruya

For “that” and “those”:

Function	that one female	that one not female	those two	those three or more
active subject	nhandruwa	nhuluwa	pulaliwa	thanaliwa
object	nhanhawa	nhinhawa	pulanhawa	thananhawa
possessor	nhangkarniwa	nhungkarniwa	pularniwa	thanarniwa
with, to	nhangkanguwa	nhungkanguwa	pulanguwa	thananguwa
from	nhangkangundruwa	nhungkangundruwa	pulangundruwa	thanangundruwa

Here are some examples of these various terms:

nhandruya mankarrali pulanhawa kanku nhayirna warayi This girl saw those two boys

nhaniwa widlha yathayi thananguya pinarranhi That woman is talking to these three or more old men

pulaya kupa thanarniwa walypalaya mindrirna warayi nhungkangundruwa ngurandru These two children belonging to those three or more white people ran away from that camp

This system might look complicated when we list out all the different terms, but with some practice you will be able to understand and use them all in their correct context.

How to say “these” and “those” in Diyari

In the previous blog post we learned that in the Diyari language there are basically two terms that are used to say “this” and two other terms that are used to say “that”, depending on whether we are talking about or talking to people or animals that are female and those which are not female (that is, they are male, or neutral or unknown, such as worms or ants). We use nhaniya for ‘this one (female)’ and nhawuya for ‘this one (not female)’, and nhaniwa ‘that one (female)’ and nhawuwa ‘that one (not female)’.

These are the words we use for one person, animal or thing — for two there is just one term and no difference between female and not female. So, we have pulaya ‘these two’ and pulawa ‘those two’, as in:

Pulaya mankarra wapayi nguraya These two girls are going to the camp

Pulaya kanku wapayi nguraya These two boys are going to the camp

Notice that in Diyari ordinary words do not have to change for one (singular) or more than one (plural), unlike English (‘boy’ –> ‘boys’, ‘child’ –> ‘children’ etc.). If you want to, you can add the ending –wurlu to indicate ‘two …’ or ‘a pair of …’ (e.g. mankarrawurlu ‘two girls, a pair of girls’ and kankuwurlu ‘two boys, a pair of boys’), but this is not necessary.

The same pattern applies when talking about things far away (“those”), so we say pulawa for ‘those two’ regardless of whether we are talking about females or others, as in:

Pulawa mankarra wapayi nguraya Those two girls are going to the camp

Pulawa kanku wapayi nguraya Those two boys are going to the camp

If we are talking about three or more people, animals or things then we use thanaya ‘these three or more’ and thanawa ‘those three or more’, as in:

Thanaya mankarra wapayi nguraya These three or more girls are going to the camp

Thanaya kanku wapayi nguraya These three or more boys are going to the camp

Thanawa mankarra wapayi nguraya Those three or more girls are going to the camp

Thanawa kanku wapayi nguraya Those three or more boys are going to the camp

Again, notice that in Diyari ordinary words do not have to change for one (singular) or more than one (plural), unlike English. If you want to, you can add the ending –wara to indicate ‘three or more …’ (e.g. mankarrawara ‘three or more girls’ and kankuwara ‘three or more boys’), but this is not necessary.

How to say “this” and “that” in Diyari

In the Diyari language, there are basically two terms that are used to say “this” and two other terms that are used to say “that”. Diyari makes a fundamental difference between talking about people or animals that are female and those which are not female (that is, they are male, or neutral or unknown, such as worms or ants). We use nhaniya for ‘this one (female)’ and nhawuya for ‘this one (not female)’, as in:

Nhaniya mankarra wapayi nguraya This girl is going to the camp

Nhawuya kanku wapayi nguraya This boy is going to the camp

The same difference applies when talking about things far away (“that”), so we use nhaniwa for ‘that one (female)’ and nhawuwa for ‘that one (not female)’, as in:

Nhaniwa mankarra wapayi nguraya That girl is going to the camp

Nhawuwa kanku wapayi nguraya That boy is going to the camp

It is important to remember this difference when describing or pointing to people, such as in a picture. To say “this is me” there are two different sentences, depending on whether the person speaking is male or female:

Nhaniya nganhi This is me (when a female is speaking)

Nhawuya nganhi This is me (when a male is speaking)

The same is true in the following:

Nhaniwa nganhi That is me (when a female is speaking)

Nhawuwa nganhi That is me (when a male is speaking)

When it comes to speaking to someone, then what we say will depend on whether that person is female or male, as in:

Nhaniya yidni This is you (when talking to a female)

Nhawuya yidni This is you (when talking to a male)

Nhaniwa yidni That is you (when talking to a female)

Nhawuwa yidni That is you (when talking to a male)

There are also different ways to say “this” and “that” if we are talking about or talking to more than one person — we will discuss this in the next blog post.

P.S. My thanks to Aunty Rene Warren for reminding me of the importance of nhaniya versus nhawuya in a Diyari language meeting in Port Augusta this week.

Anzac Day 2023

The New South Wales group who support the Gamilaraay language have just released a poster in their language for Anzac Day 2023. It is based on the artwork of Lee Hampton, Wodi Wodi, Worimi, Yuin artist (www.koorikicksart.com.au).

How could we express something like this in the Diyari language? I suggest the following as a possibility:

Ngayana thananha partyarna ngundripalha nganayi

This means ‘We will think about them all’ and is made up of the following words:

• ngayana — ‘we all, including you’
• thananha — ‘them (object of the sentence)’
• partyarna — ‘all’
• ngundripalha — ‘think about for someone else’s benefit’. This is made up of the root ngundra-rna ‘to think’ plus the ending -ipa- ‘do for the benefit of other people’ and the ending -lha ‘future’
• nganayi — ‘will’

With this Diyari expression we could commemorate the many karna (Aboriginal people) and walypala (non-Aboriginal people) who gave their lives in armed conflict.

You can listen to this post, including how the Diyari words are pronounced, here: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/peterkaustin01/episodes/Anzac-Day-2023-e22u7ii

Wata nhawu puka padni

In today’s post we learn how to say “no” in Diyari.

The English word “no” corresponds to a number of different expressions in Diyari and it is important to learn how to use them. In answer to a question or a demand we can use the word wata for ‘no’, as in:

Yini wapayi karari? Are you going now?

Wata. No.

Yundru nganthi thayirna warayi? Did you eat the meat?

Wata. No.

Nganha yingkiyamayi! Give it to me!

Wata. No.

We also use wata at the beginning of sentence to negate it, that is, to say ‘do not …’ or ‘did not …’, as in:

Wata nganhi wapayi. I’m not going.

Wata yundru nganthi thayirna warayi. You didn’t eat the meat.

Wata nganha yingkiyamayi! Don’t give it to me!

We also use this to express ‘no-one, nobody’ or ‘nothing’, like the following examples:

Wata karna wakararna warayi. No-one came. (literally, ‘not person came’)

Wata ngathu thayirna minha kurnu. I ate nothing. (literally, ‘not I eat something one’)

When talking about not having something, or lacking something (without X, or X-less), then we use padni after the thing we don’t have rather than wata at the beginning, as in:

Nganhi marda padni. I have no money.

Nhawu puka padni. He has no food.

Nhani mankarra nhintha padni. That girl is shameless (OR That girl has no shame).

Karna thidna padniyali nganha nandrarna warayi. The man with no shoes hit me (OR The man without shoes hit me) .

Kupanhi nhani yatharna warayi kathi padninhi. She spoke to the child with no clothes on (OR I spoke to the child without clothes).

If someone asks if you have something and you don’t have it, then you can simply answer padni, as in:

Yidni mardanthu? Do you have any money?

Padni. ‘None’

Diyari people, like many other Aboriginal groups, can use a hand gesture together with or instead of padni to indicate they have nothing — place one spread hand in front of the body at a 45 degree angle with palm facing away and then rotate it away from the body. (There is a video of a Wangkatjungka man demonstrating this hand sign here — it’s the second one he shows.)

Notice that we can use both expressions in the same sentence, so the title of today’s blog post can be translated as ‘No, he doesn’t have any food’.

Pilkipildra ya pildra pilki

In a previous blog post, David Nash pointed out that Dieri words have been used to make up a name for an ancient extinct animal called Wakaleo by scientists. Today’s blog is about another example of this that was pointed out to me by David.

In 1987 the scientists Michael Archer, Richard H. Telford and Thomas H. Rich published chapter in a book in which they wrote about their discovery of a new kind of extinct possum. They proposed that there were four species which belonged to a new family of marsupials that they named Pilkipildridae. Bones of this new kind of possum were found in several locations, including on Etadunna Station in northern South Australia. They give a map that includes the following:

Location B on the map is given as: “Etadunna Station, Ditjimanka Local Fauna”. We can recognise this (misspelled) place name as Dityimingka — in Dieri dityi means ‘sun’ and mingka means ‘hole in the ground’. The place called Dityimingka is an important site of significance for Dieri people, because according to tradition it is the place where the sun goes when it sets (note that in Dieri for ‘sunrise’ we say dityi durnka meaning ‘sun emerge’ and for ‘sunset’ we say dityi wirri which means ‘sun enter’ because the sun is believed to come out of Dityimingka each morning and go back in each night).

Here is a reconstruction by Peter Murray of one of the four species of Pilkipildridae called Djilgaringa gillespiei that was found at another location in Queensland:

According to the chapter by Archer, Telford and Rich, the name of the possum species and the new family comes from the Dieri language. On page 609 they write:

Etymology of the family name: Pilki is a Dieri word meaning “different” and pildra is a Dieri word meaning “possum” (Reuther 1901; as translated by Scherer and published in 1981). The Dieri Tribe occupied the Tirari Desert in which occurs Lake Palankarinna where the first pilkipildrid fossil was discovered in 1972.

So, it seems that the authors wanted to call the extinct animals ‘different possum’ and have taken two words meaning roughly that in Dieri from Reuther’s dictionary and put them together to make the name. Unfortunately, they have made a big mistake because in Dieri a word that modifies the meaning of a noun, like an adjective or a number (see here), must follow the noun, not go before it (like in English). Here are some examples:

mankarra pirna ‘big girl’ where mankarra is ‘girl’ and pirna is ‘big’
kanku waka ‘small boy’ where kanku is ‘boy’ and waka is ‘small’
kalthi payirri ‘long spear’ where kalthi is ‘spear’ and payirri is ‘long’
palthu kurndikurndi ‘winding road’ where palthu is ‘road, path’ and kurndikurndi is ‘bent, winding’

karna kurnu ‘one man’ where karna is ‘man’ and kurnu is ‘one’
kinthala mandru ‘two dogs’ where kinthala is ‘dog’ and mandru is ‘two’
wilha parkulu ‘three women’ where wilha is ‘woman’ and parkulu is ‘three’

So, while it is good that the scientists chose Dieri words for the new name, and in the process showed respect to the traditional owners of the country where the fossil bones were found, it is unfortunate that they did not put them together in the correct order according to the structure of the Dieri language. If they had called the newly discovered extinct animals pildra pilki they would have been on the right track. Even worse, when they made up the family name that changed pildra to pildri when they added the Latin ending -idae (resulting in Pilkipildridae) and then they refer to the group of species as “pilkipildrids”, making a mixture of Dieri words in the wrong order, a bit of the Latin ending and a bit of English (plural ‘s’).

References
Archer, Michael, Richard H. Telford and Thomas H. Rich. 1987. The Pilkipildridae, a new family and four new species of ?Petauroid possums (Marsupialia: Phalangerida) from the Australian Miocene. In Michael Archer (ed.) Possums and opossums: studies in evolution, 607-627. Sydney: Surrey Beatty & Sons and the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales. Available online here [accessed 2014-07-06]

Reuther, J. G., 1981 [1901]. The Diari. Translated (as A Diari Dictionary) by Rev. P. A. Scherer. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies Microfiche No.2.

Yakayayi!

All languages in the world have short expressions that can be used by themselves to express emotions or feelings, or to fill up silence when we can’t think of a word or anything to say. We can call these interjections or exclamations.

Here are some useful expressions of this type in Dieri, firstly, to fill in space while you think:

aa	‘um, ah, er’ (when you can’t think of anything to say)
minhaya	‘what’s-it, whatchamacallit, thingummy’ (when you can’t remember the name of something)
waranhaya	‘who’s-i-whatsit, someone-or-other’ (when you can’t remember the name of someone)

Here are some words to express emotions or feelings. To disagree with someone:

wata! ‘No!’

malhantyi marla! ‘Really bad!’

or
madlhantyi marla! ‘Really bad!’

To agree:

kawu! ‘Yes!’

matya ngumu! ‘That’s good!’

To express sorrow and sympathy for someone who has suffered from something bad:

nguyala! ‘Poor thing!’

To express surprise at something unexpected happening:

yakayayi! ‘Oh heck!, oh my goodness!’

Even if you don’t speak much Dieri you can still express yourself with these useful little words.

Note: Thanks to Greg Wilson and the Dieri Language Committee for sharing the sound recordings used in this post.

Yathani yaruldramatha

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:

ngathu ngantyayi yawarra kirringankalha ngakarni kupa-kupa

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’.

Nhawurdatha nganhi!

Here is the comic we presented in the last blog post:

Here is what the two characters (Thidnamara ‘Frog’ on the left, and Mawakantyi ‘Greedy’ on the right) are saying:

Thidnamara:	wardaru yini mawakantyi? ‘How are you?’
Mawakantyi:	matya nganhi manyu ‘I’m fine’
Thidnamara:	waranha nhaniya? ‘Who is she?’
Mawakantyi:	nhaniya ngakarni papa ‘She is my aunt’
Thidnamara:	waranha nhawurda? ‘Who is he?’
Mawakantyi:	nhawurda ngakarni kaka ‘He’s my uncle’
Mawakantyi:	nhawurdatha nganhi! ‘This is me!’

The English translation misses some important parts of the meaning in the Dieri original because English does not have a way to express certain concepts, like the distance someone is from the speaker. Notice that Frog uses nhaniya to refer to the aunt who is a little distance away, using the ending -ya. But when he points to the uncle who is understood to be right close by he uses nhawurda with the ending -rda that means ‘close by’. Similarly, when Greedy sees himself on the computer screen he uses nhawurda because it is close by (he could reach out and touch it) — he also adds the ending -tha which indicates old information, something that everyone can see and know about. Notice if the character was female she would say nhanirdatha nganhi! ‘This is me!’ using the female term for ‘this, she’.

You can use these expressions by yourself or in a group to practise Dieri in several ways. One possibility is to draw pictures of your relatives (and yourself!) and write the term for their relation to you in Dieri under the picture. Then place them on a table at various distances away and practice saying things like nhawurda ngakarni kaka ‘This (right here) is my uncle’ or nhaniwa ngakarni ngandri ‘That (far away) is my mother’. You can also do this with a friend as question and answer pairs, like:

Question: waranha yingkarni kaka ‘Who is your uncle?’
Answer: nhawurda ngakarni kaka ‘This (nearby) is my uncle’

or:

Question: nhaniya yingkarni kaku kara yingkarni ngathata ‘Is this your older sister or your younger sister?’
Answer: nhaniya ngakarni kaku ‘This is my older sister’

If you can use Powerpoint you can also scan the pictures with their Dieri relation terms, and create a Powerpoint show with them, one on each slide, and then narrate the slides in Dieri as you present them. You can end your presentation with nhawurdatha nganhi! or nhanirdatha nganhi!, depending on whether you are male or female.

Note: Thanks to Greg Wilson and the Dieri Language Committee for sharing some of the materials and ideas in this blog post.

Waranha nhawurda?

Today’s comic talks about different relations:

Here is what the two characters (Thidnamara ‘Frog’ on the left, and Mawakantyi ‘Greedy’ on the right) are saying — to help understand them you might have a look back at this blog post and this blog post. For some of the dialogue listen to the recordings of Aunty Rene and Aunty Winnie below:

Thidnamara:	wardaru yini mawakantyi?
Mawakantyi:	matya nganhi manyu
Thidnamara:	waranha nhaniya?
Mawakantyi:	nhaniya ngakarni papa
Thidnamara:	waranha nhawurda?
Mawakantyi:	nhawurda ngakarni kaka
Mawakantyi:	nhawurdatha nganhi!

Listen to Aunty Rene and Aunty Winnie saying part of the dialogue:

nhaniya ngakarni papa

nhawurda ngakarni kaka

nhawurdatha nganhi!

In the next blog post we will look at the translation of this dialogue and also some ways it can be used in language learning activities, either by yourself or in a group, such as in a classroom.

Note: Thanks to Greg Wilson and the Dieri Language Committee for sharing their sound recordings.