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.

Kararaya Diyari yawarra: pardiyali tharlpa thayirna ngamayi

English translation: Today’s Diyari words pardiyali tharlpa thayirna ngamayi ‘The caterpillar is sitting down eathing’

This blog post follows on from the previous post about mawakantyi ‘greedy guts’ and the Very Hungry Caterpillar.

In Diyari we can express the idea that an action is being done while sitting down by placing ngama-rna ‘to sit’ after the events being described. This is a common expression as many actions (like cooking, making things, weaving etc.) were traditionally carried out sitting on the ground. Here are some examples:

ngaldra yatharna ngamayi ‘We two talk sitting down’

kupali pipa dakarna ngamayi ‘The child writes sitting down’

Notice that you can express the time of such a situation by adding the relevant auxiliary after ngama-rna, as in:

ngandriyali puka wayirna ngamarna warayi ‘Mother sat down cooking bread’

ngathu nhinha kirringankarna ngamalha nganayi ‘I will sit down and teach him’

So, our words today are:

pardiyali ‘grub, caterpillar’ (the ending –yali indicates that pardi ‘grub, caterpillar’ is doing an action)

tharlpa ‘leaf’ (also used for ‘ears’ of a person or animal)

thayi-rna ‘to eat’

ngama-yi ‘is sitting’

Note: in his Diyari Dictionary Reuther gives many specialised expressions involving tharlpa, as in:

mingka tharlpa ‘a [small] opening leading upwards from inside a burrow’ (mingka ‘hole in the ground’)

yawarra tharlpa ‘message that has been sent out in this and that direction, [but only] a portion of which has reached a certain point’ (yawarra ‘word, language, message’)

marna tharlpa ‘upper and lower lips’ (marna ‘mouth’)

Kararaya Diyari yawarra: nganhi mawakantyi

English translation: “Today’s Diyari words: nganhi mawakantyi ‘I am a greedy guts'”

In a previous blog post we explained that in Diyari words for feelings or states of mind are nouns, like walkarra ‘sadness’, yapa ‘fear’, mawa ‘hunger’, thardi ‘thirst’. Today we are adding the ending –kantyi ‘someone habitually associated with’ to such words to derive other expressions, like the one used here for the Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Examples of these words are:

mawakantyi ‘greedy guts, someone who is always hungry’

thardikantyi ‘someone who’s always thirsty’

yapakantyi ‘scardy cat, someone who’s always afraid’

walkarrakantyi ‘cry baby, someone who’s always sad’

Note: there is a separate word kantyi which means ‘real, true, proper’ and this can be combined with other words. This is not an ending but modifies the word it follows:

yawarra kantyi ‘real language, true words’

puka kantyi ‘proper bread’

mawa kantyi ‘real hunger, proper famine’

There is also another word kantyi which is a particle found at the beginning of sentences to indicate that something can or could happen, as in:

kantyi nganhi diyari yathayi ‘I can speak Diyari’

kantyi nhawu palirna warayi ‘He could have died’

kantyi nhandru yinanha nhayirna warrayi ‘She could have seen you’

Kararaya Diyari yawarra: nhani walkarrali nganayi

Translation: Today’s Diyari words: Nhani walkarrali nganayi ‘She is sad’

In Diyari, to talk about properties of people or things we mostly just use a single adjective word after the thing being described, without any linking ‘be’, ‘am’, ‘is’, or ‘are’ that we need in English. For example:

nganhi manyu ‘I am fine’

mutuka ngumu ‘The car is good’

nhawuya pirta madlhantyi ‘That wood is bad’

However, in Diyari, words for feelings or mental states are nouns (walkarra ‘sadness’, yapa ‘fear’, mawa ‘hunger’, thardi ‘thirst’) and to say someone feels that way you must use the frame X …-(ya)li nganayi. For example, nganhi mawali nganayi ‘I am hungry’, yini thardiyali nganayi? ‘Are you thirsty?’ Here we have: nhani walkarrali nganayi ‘She is sad’.

There are two choices of ending here:

–yali is used for words of two syllables that end in i or u, e.g. thardi ‘hunger’

–li is used for words ending in a (for words of three syllables that end in i or u the final vowel changes to a and –li is added)

Notice that -(ya)li is the same ending that we use to express a tool or instrument in an action sentence in Diyari, such as:

pinarru wapayi pirtali ‘The old man walks with a stick’ (pirta ‘stick’)

karnali nganthi damayi nhayipali ‘The man is cutting meat with a knife’ (nhayipa ‘knife’)

kanku pirkiyi katyiyali ‘The boy is playing with a spear’ (katyi ‘spear)

widlhali ngardu dakayi marda kuparrali ‘The woman is grinding nardoo with an upper grinding stone’ (marda kuparru ‘upper grinding stone’ — see here)

If you want to express who or what the feelings are directed towards we use the ending –ya ‘to’ for this:

kupa-kupa mawali nganayi nganthiya ‘The children are hungry for meat’

nganhi thardiyali nganayi ngapaya ‘I am thirsty for water’

nhani walkarrali nganayi ngandriya ‘She is sad for her mother’

Kararaya Diyari yawarra: marda kuparru

Today’s Diyari words: marda kuparru ‘upper grinding stone’

Grinding stones like this one were used by the Dieri people to grind seeds (like yawa ‘wild onions’ or ngardu ‘nardoo’ — see here) into flour that was then eaten raw or mixed with water and made into a kind of bread that was cooked in the ashes. Such puka ‘vegetable food’ was a staple of Dieri traditional diet.

The grinding stones are called marda for the lower stone and marda kuparru for the smaller upper stone (as discussed in a previous blog post, kuparru means the young or child of a non-human, so here the upper stone is named like the child of the lower stone). These grinding stones were highly treasured by Dieri people, as there are no large rocks or stones in the Dieri traditional country and marda and marda kuparru had to be traded with neighbours like the Arabana and Yandruwandha and transported hundreds of kilometers on men’s heads from the quarries where they were made. Grinding stones were traditionally passed from fathers to sons when a man died, and hence were employed year after year.

Kararaya Diyari yawarra: kurparu kuparru

Diyari: kurparu kuparru. Translation: young magpie

This expression is a bit of a tongue twister in Diyari as it contains the three r-sounds: rolled rr (like Scottish English r), flapped r (a short flap of the tongue behind the teeth, like a short d sound), and gliding r (like American English r in ‘car’). Unfortunately, it is not possible on Facebook or in blog headings to display the underlining we use for the gliding r.

Note that kuparru is the term used for the young or offspring of a non-human (baby bird, baby kangaroo etc. — see also the next post). Human children are called kupa.

Facebook posts

Since 20th November 2023 I have been posting each day on my account on Facebook a picture and a short description in Diyari, to show learners that it is easy to speak in language about anything they might want to. The stimulus for most posts has been current events or other posts. In this and following blog entries I expand on the Facebook materials and explain some of the words and expressions they contain.

“Ngakarni ngurrulharlu pirna? Diyari yawarra yatharna“

Translation: “My superpower? Speaking Diyari language”

Here we have two simple expressions made up as follows:

ngakarni ‘my’

ngurrulharlu ‘power’ (composed of ngurru ‘strong, powerful’, –lha ‘associated with’, –rlu ‘still, yet’)

pirna ‘big’ (this is how we translate “super-…”)

followed by:

Diyari ‘Diyari, Dieri’

yawarra ‘language’

yatharna ‘to speak’ (composed of yatha– ‘to speak, say’ and –rna ‘to …’)

Notice that we use the –rna form of the verb to indicate a timeless situation that does not relate to any particular occasion (compare yatha-yi ‘is speaking’, yatha-rna warayi ‘spoke earlier’, yatha-lha nganayi ‘will speak’). So we could also say, for example, nhurru mindrirna ‘running quickly’, pipa dakarna ‘writing’, mawali thayirna ‘eating hungrily’, and so on.

Note: a challenge for new language learners is to go beyond memorising words and fixed expressions and to start creating new sentences to talk about what they see around them. We hope that these examples show how easy this is by building on existing knowledge.

Wama kara tyutyu kara

At the Dieri families Yarning about Language workshop last weekend, there was some discussion about how to describe the following picture:

Some people said it is a wama while others said it is a tyutyu. Both are right but in different ways.

In Diyari, wama is the term for ‘carpet snake’, also called ‘Ramsay’s python’ or ‘sand python’. Its scientific name is Aspidites ramsayi and you can see more information about it, including pictures, here. In addition, wama can be used to refer to any snake, especially if you can’t identify it or you don’t know the specific name.

In Diyari, tyutyu is the term for any ‘biting or stinging animal’ that can hurt people, and this includes snakes as well as insects like mosquito (kunthi), fly (muntyu), louse (kata), ant (mirka), scorpion (kadninurndi), centipede (thilthirri) or spider (marankara).

You would not use it for things that don’t bite people like grubs (pardi) or grasshoppers (pindri). We also don’t use it for larger animals like dogs (kinthala) or fish (parru), even though they can bite.

So wama is the general term for snakes, and tyutyu is the general term for small biting animals (snakes and insects).

Note: the title of today’s post means ‘Either snake or biting animal’ — it uses kara ‘or’ after each word to mean ‘either … or …’.

Thanks to Jan Scott for correcting some errors in an earlier version of this post.

Yawarra mithanhi — Language Landscape

One way we can support languages that are under pressure from bigger and more powerful languages, like Diyari is threatened by English, is called Language Landscape. The idea here is that we make the smaller local languages obvious in the general surroundings by putting up signs, notices, and directions in the language. In some places, we have dual signage where the names of places, locations, and street signs are shown in two languages, English and the local language. There are many examples of this in Adelaide, South Australia, where Kaurna appears in signs along with English. Here are some examples:

Pirltawardli

Tarntanyangga

Karrawirra Pari

‘possum place’

‘red kangaroo dreaming’

‘redgum forest river’

Possum Park

Victoria Square

River Torrens

Here is a picture from the Women’s and Children’s Hospital:

We can put Diyari language in the landscape by using signs like the following for “Enter Here”:

In Diyari, nhingkirda means ‘here’ and wirriyamayi means ‘enter, go in’. It is made up of wirri-rna ‘to enter’, –ya ‘order’ and –mayi ’emphasis’. Here is the opposite, for “Do Not Enter”:

Again, this is made up of wata ‘not’ and wirriyamayi ‘enter!’. Here is another one for “Be Quiet”:

This is made up of ngapu ‘silence’ –ri ‘become’, –ya ‘order’ and –mayi ’emphasis’, so ngapuriyamayi means ‘become silent!, be quiet!’

Please feel free to print these signs and put them up in prominent places in Diyari country to remind people that it’s yawarra ‘language’ mithanhi ‘in the country, in the land’.

You can listen to a podcast of this blog post on Spotify.

Kararaya yawarra — mara ya thidna

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.