‘Different talk for different relatives: Relationships shown in restored stories from three Gumbaynggirr (N. Coast NSW) dialects.’
Gary Williams, Dallas Walker, Steve Morelli
Muurrbay Language Centre, Nambucca Heads
Introduction
We present some findings of a project we have completed, which was funded by AIATSIS: ‘A comparative linguistic analysis of Gumbaynggirr Dreaming stories in three dialects: Nymboidan, Northern and Southern.’
The stories come from three dialectally different areas. We highlight and analyse avoidance, politeness and joking relationships in these Gumbaynggirr story-plays, emphasising how language maintains relationships and how kinship and other influences affect communication. We highlight the variety of strategies which the Dreaming plays and stories use to express politeness and avoidance.
The three dialectal sources of Gumbaynggirr Dreaming stories
Nymboidan
In 1929, the Nymboidan Gumbaynggirr Phillip Shannon gave the American linguist Gerhardt Laves thirteen dreaming-plays,twelve of which Laves wrote on note-book pages, and one as a typescript.
Audio sources from the Nymboidans Phillip Long and Clarence Skinner (who recorded the only other Nymboidan story and the only one in audio) when compared with Shannon’s language have helped establish the nature and extent of Nymboidan.
Gumbaynggirr was possibly the first Aboriginal language Laves recorded. In the following samplesLaves’ text is followed by his gloss, then by our rendition of the text, our gloss (in bold) his free translation (in five texts: but not available in our story text ) and our free translation.
(1) From Moon story MS (No free translation in Laves)
yaˑŋgabularguragaˑraweguraiñtherecome2 bro.backmessengers
Ya=anggabula-gurrgaarla-wa-ygurraany.
here=EVIDpair-M[SBJ]back-IVZ-NFmessenger[SBJ] / Here they are! The two messenger brothers are coming back.
(2)From Madaan story typescript
ŋeŋaiđabuaŋbulambalainterj.Ikilledtwo-for
Ngii!Ngaajabuwaangbulambala!
Yes1SG.ERGhit.PST2DU.LOC / [Laves’ free translation: ‘Ah! I killed them to get even with you!’]
Yes! I killed him because of you two.
2. Southern
The five Southern Gumbaynggirr stories, in contrast to those of the other areas, are almost entirely on audiotape. They have been transcribed previously by Muurrbay. We have glossed these to the same standard as the other stories, and re-edited our free translations.
All the Southern story material comes from Harry Buchanan,the main collector being Diana Eades but with contributions from Terry Crowley, Howard Creamer and WG Hoddinott.
(3)An example from Southern:
Yaam=agaywaruungga-duyanigurra-nggamayngilina.this.here=EMPHup.LOC-ERGgo.CAUS-PSTspearthis.
Bawga-ng=agayBirrugan-aya.
poke-PST=EMPHBirrugan-OBJhere / Well the man on top dropped this spear and speared Birrugan right here (through the top of his shoulder.)
Northern
The only story materials available in the Northern dialect are fragments in the supplement to WE Smythe’s ‘Elementary grammar of the Gumbaiŋgar Language’.
Several of Smythe’s informants came from outside the Northern dialect area. However there are a few semantic and morphological elements distinguishing a unique Northern dialect and Smythe’s informants were convinced that there was a dialectal N.-S. distinction in materials they were sharing.
(4) An example from Northern (Bold script and gloss from Muurrbay):
Ja:mandibu:nmiwjilánnamilgánjarayaam=andibuunmi-wyilaa-namilga-nyarr
this=iffall-FUThere-ABLridge.pole-ABL
ŋanjani:gadugammaidjubaugaŋ
ngaanyaniigadugamay-jubawga-ng
1SG.OBJGoori.ERGspear-INSpoke-PST / [Smythe: ‘… if the bag were to fall off the pole while he was away it would indicate that he had been killed’]
If these should fall from the ridge pole here, men will have speared me.
nAn areal estimate of the three dialects of the Gumbaynggirr stories
Below is a language map of Gumbaynggirr and neighbouring areas (adapted from the Gumbaynggirr Dictionary and Learner’s Grammar). NOTE: there are other dialectal groups beside the three we arelooking at.
A generalised estimate of the extent of the dialect areas distinguished in this story project are marked in the map below as circles named Nymboidan, Northern and Southern.
NOTE: This is NOT a definitive or exact estimate of the three dialect areas.The Borders between Language Groups (the largest point-form words) have been deliberately omitted.There are other dialect areas.
List of stories and their Sources
The Southern stories: Harry BuchananSource
How the Rivers and Languages Were Made LA Tapes 4499 (Eades); 417a(Creamer)
Muurrbay Bundani – The Tree of life LA Tapes 4497, 4502 (Eades)
Yuludarla, Gawnggan and BirruganLA Tapes 1396a (Hoddinott); 2764 (Crowley);
[The three major hero-ancestors in all 4498, 4502 (Eades); Laves’ notebooks;
the Gumbaynggirr area] [N. additions (WE Smythe, 1948) for continuity]
Wijiirrjagi [Cannibal woman]and the BrothersLA Tape 4499 (Eades)
How the Sea was Made – The Southern Sea Story LA Tapes 2763, 2764 (Crowley); 4498 (Eades); 5039 (Creamer); New Dawn (May, 1971)
The Nymboidan Stories
Phillip Shannon to Gerhardt Laves
How the Sea was Made – The Nymboidan Sea Story MS with gloss and free translation
The Wild Women [‘Amazons’] and the First Canoe.MS with gloss
Giidanyba the Moon ManMS with gloss
Madaan [Old man vs. Young man over wives]Typescript with gloss and free translation
Jandungal, the Blind BoyMS with gloss and free translation
The Bearded DragonMS with gloss
How Greyface Kangaroo Got His TailMS with gloss
The Stolen FireMS with gloss and part free translation
How Porcupine Stole the Baby GirlMS with gloss
The Two Goanna MenMS with gloss and free translation
The Creation of Black Fellows [White Contact story]MS with gloss
The Swearing Couples [Law ignored = social breakdown]MS with gloss
How They Made WomenMS with gloss
Clarence Skinner to WG Hoddinott
Dirraanggan [Clarence R. witch]LA Tape 1397 (Hoddinott)
The Northern Stories
Anonymous contributors to WE Smythe
Birrugan and the Elder (a)(WE Smythe, 1948)
Birrugan and the Elder (b)“
Birrugan and Gawnggan“
The Echo“
Finding Honey and the Bull-roarer“
Finding a Lost Bull-roarer“
Appendix: Stories from the Gumbaynggirr area told in English
1
Avoidance, Politeness and Joking
diversity of Gumbaynggirr dialects as revealed in story analysis
Dialects: mutually intelligible forms of a language spoken by distinct groups, each having some distinct vocabulary and grammar and possibly pronunciation, the stories collected from Nymboidan, Southern and Northern Gumbaynggirr establish these three as separate dialects that each of the other groups could easily understand.
There are fewdiscernible differences at the pronunciation level.Optional omission of initial ng on some words seems to have obtained in Nymboidan only, and the rare tendency of geminating medial liquids or nasals in Southern was more common in Nymboidan and much more so in Northern.e.g. the subject-changing particle gala in S. and ga:la in Ny written by Smythe as ga:l:a;and the word for ‘spear’: gamay written asgammai.
Following are some semantic dialectal differences mostlytaken from story material :
English Word / Southern / Nymboidan / Northernalso / waw / yurrga / yurrga
creek / yamaan / gulany / yamaan
cheek / baanyarr / ngarraarr / baanyarr
egg / mirubay / maabarr / maabarr
native bee and honey / dungaarr / buyuny (dungaarr) / dungaarr
hop / garraji / jululgi / garraji
horse / gaarr / yarraman / yarramaan
knee / baga-baga / barliin / barliin
middle / bimiirr / bimiirr / bumiirr
Nambucca Heads / Baga-baga, / Munubaga
no / biiway / biyaway / biiway
north / birraw / gawaan / birra
penis / gumbaany / guulman / nuluny
put / muuga / yuwarra / yuwarra
rock / muniim / gulburr / guri, muniim
spear (n) / gamay / bilaarr / biguurr, bilaarr, gamay
stop / biiwaya / biyawa / biiwaya
tree / biguurr / jaliigirr / biguurr, jaliigirr
war / buulmay / gundum / buulmay
white / garaaban / daagan / daagan, garaaban
woman / nyami / buwarrinyin / buwarrinyin, nyami
- Semantically, as shown above, Nymboidan and Southern are most distant. Smythe’s story material shows that N. shared some vocabulary with Ny. (red) and S. (black) while having unique lexemes of its own (green).
- At the morphological level Nymboidan shows itself to be the most divergent, for instance making an allative / purposive case distinction that does not obtain in the other two dialects;and commonly using plurals on family nouns (e.g. gawa: uncle gawa-ja uncles) that are never found in the other two dialects. Similarly a common –anga plural on demonstratives is only found in Nymboidan.
- SyntacticallyNymboidan and Northern share at least two sentence level constructions not found in Southern, but the divergence here among all three dialects is not large.
Morphological and syntactic differences are analysed in our ‘Comparative linguistic analysis…’ but are not part of our talk here.
A large part of language variation is probably due not to dialect but to the stages of language loss obtaining when the stories of each area were collected. In fact there have been generational gaps between collection of Nymboidan (1929), Northern (1940’s) and Southern (1960’s – 1970’s).
The lack of plurals in N. and S. was probably attributable to this loss and was no doubt concomitant with the loss of politeness structures, for much evident politeness and avoidance in Nymboidan is linked to plurality.
Gumbaynggirr Kinship
Gumbaynggirr had a section system: with four male and four female section names. It was patrilocal and exogamous: one had to marry a classificatory cross-cousin; distant both in blood and geographically. As in other parts of Aboriginal Australia the section names aligned with kinship terms like ngaji: ‘cross-cousin / brother-or-sister- in-law’ or barran: ‘cross-aunt’ [where cross-aunt is distant =potential mother-in-law]. One could use these or equivalent terms throughout Gumbaynggirr and neighbouring language groups using this system, including Dhanggati, Birrbay and Yaygirr but excluding Bundjalung.
Kinship and communication styles in Aboriginal Australia
There is ample evidence around Aboriginal Australia showing that, especially before rapid social change through Western influence, how one communicated with another was largely constrained by the kin relationship between the two. We will use the present tense in reference to these communication styles.
There is a continuum within groups:
- from extreme avoidance;
- through partial avoidance, e.g. Brother-in-law language;
- through to what Goddard (1992, 99) terms ‘The oblique speech style Tjalpawangkanyi’;
- through a relaxed style;
- to the speech used in a joking relationship
However among different language groups there are considerable differences in the communication demanded between any particular kin relationship: its nature (avoidance, neutral, joking), the intensity of the demands, and the linguistic devices used to carry out these demands.[1]
Kinship and other influences in Gumbaynggirr communication
Gumbaynggirr story-plays show Gumbaynggirr interaction styles both fit into the context of Australia-wide Aboriginal practices and have a distinct identity.
Not every kin relation is exemplified in stories. For instance, we know FF and SS call each other gagu: ‘brother’ but the stories give no examples of how this relationship is practised.
It is also evident in the stories that ways of communicating are influenced not just by kin-relationships but by life tensions and the universal angers, passions, loves, jealousies and rivalries that people have with each other.
Gumbaynggirr respect structures
Grammatical respect structures
The ‘let’ suffix on imperative forms of verbs
All dialects share the –la suffix on verbs that is commonly used to moderate the force of a command and include the speaker thus:
(5)YanaaYanaa-la
go-IMP ‘Go!’ go.IMP-let‘Let’s go’
In Nymboidan this suffix has also been used where the context shows the speaker is not included producing the equivalent of ‘please’:
(6)Yilaa-mi-la!
here-IAVZ[IMP]-let!‘Please come (closer everyone)!’
Respect Plural on pronouns
Avoidance / politeness through pluralising second person pronouns, and through use of the third person
Examples are found in Nymboidan only.
In S. there is a vague reference thatngujawas once used as an avoidance ‘you’ between brother and sister (in lieu of the common ngiinda and related to S. ngujawiny: 2PL.SBJ.) This indicates that pronouns pluralised to mark respect / avoidance were once used in Southern Gumbaynggirr too.
As a comparison, Haviland (1979, 373) notes plural usage in Guugu-Yimidhirr brother-in-law language. The plural was used to mark respect for a single ‘you’ ‘This device clearly resembles the polite use of the second person plural pronouns in Indo-European languages’.Haviland also footnotes here Elkin’s awareness (1962: 517) that the polite ‘you’ singular in German which is 3rd person plural Sie, was paralleled in some Australian languages (Haviland, 1962, 373).
In the Nymboidan story-plays the plural ‘you’ in address is invariably used between brother and sister, and is found in subjective, ergative and objective case. E.g. the blind boy tells his older sister.
(7)Ngaaja juun.gu jinda-ama ngujiny-ing bumaa-ygu.
1SG.ERG tell.FUTo.sister-OBJ2PL.AVOID-OBJhit-PURP
‘I'll tell big sister to hit you.’
Laves in a marginal note writes: ‘Second pers. Sing. Between brother and sister; also to mo. bro. and reciprocal.’
Whereas in ordinary address one uses cases of the 1st person dual: ngalii: ‘we two’, between a brother and sister the first person plural, not dual, must be used.
In the following, older sister is talking to the same brother:
(8)Yanaa=gay ngiyaa yaarri mangga!
go.IMP=EMPH 1PL.[AVOID]SBJ CHGE ahead
Come on! Let’s move on!
When the blind boy tells the senior sister to leave the other one to her fate, the speaker together with the one addressed are marked as plural but the sister referred to is not marked for number.
(9)
Ngiyaa-la wananga ngarri!Baya buumguyuunggugadila!
1PL-ERGleave.IMP 3SG[OBJ] let hit.FUT bad ought.
‘Let’s you and me leave her. That evil one deserves to be killed’
When the older sister addresses her brother and sister together a different politeness strategy is used: she addresses them in the third person.
(10) Ngarribularriyanaawarriibuujurr
3SGtwo[SBJ]go.IMPdown.eastlittle.boy
‘You and the boy [Literally: ‘Those two …] go down-river!’
This somewhat resembles the ‘Sie’ (3PL) used for formal ‘you-one’ in German.
It contrasts with non-avoidance address of two non-related others (here: two dingoes) where the second person dual pronoun is used:
(11)Bulaayilaabaguurli
2DU.SBJherelie.down[IMP]
‘You two, lie here!’
The simple second person dual pronoun is also used when brother says to his sister ‘you two’, referring to her and an absent relative:
(12)Jugi-dabulaa-lanyayagijalumbaw?
where-LOC2DU-ERGsee.PRSlong.ago
‘Where did you and that other one see it long ago?’
The story-plays show that as Laves has claimed, a classificatory mother’s brother is also addressed with the ngujin plural in Nymboidan, this being a reciprocal term:
Nephew to Moon-man:
(13)Biyagay yarrang ngamii-li-w ngujiny-ing.
notthatshoulder.carry-CONT-FUT2PL.AVOID-OBJ
‘They’re not going to carry you.’
Moon-man to nephew:
(14)Yaarri ngujilingmaani ngaanya
CHGE2PL.AVOID.ERGcarry[IMP]1SG.OBJ
‘Now you carry me’
Surprisingly, one relationship which would seem to have demanded the ngujin form of address; that between a man and his classificatory cross-aunt (a potential mother-in-law); does not normally use it. ‘Aunt’ and ‘nephew’ simply speak to each other as ngiinda: 2.SG. In the ‘Wild women’ story there is much dialogue of this nature between two brothers and the aunt who is just about to give away her daughters and nieces to them in marriage; without the formal ngujin being used.
In a Gumbaynggirr fragment: the ‘Porcupine’ story, the ordinary ngiinda(2SG) is freely used between the potential mother-in-law and her ‘nephew’.
However, the ngujin term is used in one passage. The background is that the wicked Porcupine is waiting for his promised bride from a woman (an ‘aunt’ / mother-in-law to be) who hides her sole girl-child from him. She says to him:
(15)Waarriya ngujiny! Waarriya ngujiny! Yaam ngaaja giibarr gurrayngarrwa-ng.
wait.IMP 2PL.AVOID.SBJ wait.IMP 2PL.AVOID.SBJhere 1SG.ERG boy[OBJ] all bear-PST
‘Keep waiting, Sir. You, Sir just have to keep waiting. I’ve been having all boy-babies.’
It seems likely that the formal address between people in this relationship had once been the norm, but had fallen into disuse even at the time (1929) when Laves recorded these story-plays.
Respect Plural on nouns
There are several instances in Nymboidan of plural being marked on a noun and used to mark politeness. Again, this has not been found in the stories of the other dialects. It is generally used in reference to a single person, but also in address. However this usage is not simply determined by the kinds of relationships mentioned above. It can connote as much pity as respect.
In the following, younger brother is sorry for his sleeping elder brother and thinks respectfully