Goldfields Region Western Australia
Final Report June 2012
Linguistic Work undertaken 2011-12
Outcomes Achieved
1.
2.
3.
4.
Database of 1300 Ngalia words and phrases, Toolbox
Phonology and Sketch grammar of Ngalia
Database of 501 Kuwarra words and phrases, Toolbox
Database of 1063 Kaalamaya words and phrases of the Kaprun people,
Toolbox
5. Historical trawl of documents for all four study languages.
6. Production of booklet ‘Kaprun Language and Stories’
7. Sketch grammar of Kaalamaya
8. Addition of 336 words to database of Tjupan words and phrases, with 486
in database now, Toolbox
9. Four community workshops on processes of language work, spellings,
language names, locations,
10. Engagement of four speech communities in linguistic work.
11. Engagement of Marlpa community in language work for the 2012-15
period.
12. Digital recordings of Kuwarra, Ngalia, Tjupan and Kaalamaya.
13. Recovery of 19 tapes of Ngalia songs, digitization and deposit with State
Library of Western Australia and AIATSIS
14. Deposit of all material at State Library of Western Australia and AIATSIS.
Classification of Study Languages
The work during the year 2011-12 looked into the classification of the languages
under study. In 2008, Doug Marmion in a report for Wangka Maya Pilbara
Aboriginal Language Centre,1 proposed a family tree structure based on the
division of the languages of the Goldfields region of Western Australia. This
division focused on languages being either of the Wati or South-West (Nyungic)
groups.
The nature of the languages under study being that none are spoken fluently,
most were unrecorded until this study and some are only remembered by
elderly people, has meant further urgent research needs to be undertaken to
determine the exact constitution of the Goldfields family tree.
This first year of work included a great deal of community education,
development of goodwill and an understanding of the nature and processes of
linguistic work on Aboriginal languages. It was generally not until the last half of
the year that linguistic material began to flow freely as speakers understood and
trusted the processes and researchers.
Kalgoorlie Languages Inventory: Report to the Wangka Maya Pilbara Aboriginal
Language Centre Doug Marmion, April 2 2008
1
One language, Kaalamaya of the Kaprun people, clearly demonstrates the
difficulty of determining whether it is of the Ngaju-Mirning or Western Desert
subgroup. Based on the lexical items alone, the language is very closely related to
the Wati languages. Gaining natural speech from the sole remaining speaker was
impeded by his ill health from February 2012 to the end of the study period. Full
sentence constructs are critical to the work to determine the placement of this
language according to linguistic analysis. Fortunately work done June to Dec
2011 with this speaker enabled a substantial lexical database to be developed.
However, family members and wider society sociologically place Kaalamaya
amongst the Ngaju-Mirning subgroup. The Kaprun people’s identification is
socially determines rather than linguistically and this may be due to recent
historical reasons more than traditional reasons.
The difficulty in placing a language in the family tree is best described by W H
Douglas (1964:2-3)2 :
‘Within the area from which the material for this grammar has been
gathered, it has been found that people do not have a specific name for
their language. The general word for ‘speech’ or ‘language’ is wangka and
for ‘the people’ wangkatja.
‘Nicknames’, however, are given to the various dialects according to their
particular idiosyncrasies. For example the people of the Warburton
Ranges ‘nickname’ a dialect found around Ernabella wangka
yankuntjajara ‘the language having the word yankuntja (meaning ‘went’)’
The Ernabella folk, on the other hand, label the Warburton ranges dialect
wangka pitjantjatjarra, because they use pitjantja instead of yankuntja at
the Ranges.
On the basis of the pitjantja/yankuntja distinction, the whole Western
Desert could be divided into two major dialect groups. The pitjantjatjarra
speakers are found in the south and west (from Ooldea, or Yalata, through
Kalgoorlie and Mt Margaret to east of the Warburton Ranges). The
yankuntjatjara or ankuntjatjarra speakers are found in the east and north
(roughly from Oodnadatta in S.A. to Jigalong and Fitzroy Crossing in W.A.).
While there may be certain geographical and religious features tending to
bind the pitjantjatjara folk into a group separate from the yankuntjatjara,
yet linguistically there are so many overlapping features that a major
division on the basis of this vocabulary difference would appear to be
unreasonable. (At Ernabella the ya- stem indicates direction away, pitjadirection towards the speaker.)
Consideration of a few of the other variants will reveal something of the
complexity of the dialectical overlappings and idiosyncrasies.
2
An Introduction to the Western Desert Language W.H.Douglas 1964
The word for ‘man’ (i.e. ‘an initiated man’) re-divides the Western Desert
area and gives rise to a new set of ‘nicknames’.
Ooldea, Ernabella, Warburton Ranges use wati
Mt Margaret – Kalgoorlie area uses
puntu
East of Jigalong the word used is
matu
To the people of the Kalgoorlie area, the Jigalong people are the wangka
matujara ‘Those having the word matu (‘man’)’, and piniritjara because
they are the word piniri (‘run’), a word that is not used in the south.
In discussion with Kuwarra speaker Geraldine Hogarth, she expressed a
reluctance to label her language Kuwarra and instead suggested that it be called
‘One of the Pini languages along with Tjupan, Putata and others.’ Hogarth
suggested that this language group should be called the Thalu groups of
languages as this was the local sense of identification. Further questioning
indicates that this is for sociological rather than linguistic reasons.
Aboriginal people in and around Leonora usually identify as being from two or
more language groups. The historical nature of migration and movement in the
Goldfields region is one of great upheaval with few language groups remaining
on their traditional land during early European settlement. In the last 30 years,
people have tended to work their way back to traditional land in one way or
another, or live in towns close to their traditional land. The consequence of this
upheaval has meant that there are at least 5 language groups living in Leonora
and the lingua franca spoken is reflective of elements of these groups.
When the researcher commenced work on the languages of the area, most
people, whilst identifying with a particular language group, usually stated that all
the languages were the ‘really the same’ 3.
Ken Hansen (1984:7) has described the complex nature of identifying language
groups and names as:
‘These local groups and collections of local groups, which in this paper I
term ‘multigroups’, had minor speech variations and were often tagged
with a name derived from such speech differences. The Ngapi
wangkatjarra in the north were so called because they used ngapi instead
of ngaatja for ‘this’. Ngapi wangkatjarra means ‘(the people) with the
talk/word ngapi’. Whilst such linguistic differences existed they were not
considered as any barrier to communication or socialization, as the
differing speech forms only affected approximately 20% of their speech.
80% of their speech was common. There may have been scores of such
multigroup dialect names over the whole Gibson and Sandy desert area.
The following are some that I have come across; Kanti wangkatjarra,
Patutatjarra, Pitjapitja, Winanpa, Purruku wangkatjarra, Wanantjarra,
Kuwarratjarra, Ngaatjatjarra, Putitjarra, Tjiwalinyjta, Ngulyu wangka,
3
Hogarth, Narrier and others, Leonora 2011
Mantjiltjarra, Kukatja kiya, Tjarrurungkatja Minurungkatja, Wangka
tjukutjukutjarra, Wangka kuwarra and Kakarra wangka.’
Hansen describes the situation as found in the Goldfields region where multiple
groups co-exist and self identify for a variety of sociological reasons.
The current native title environment adds a more immediate desire for
Aboriginal people to settle on a single name and identity so that, ‘in order for
native title to exist, a claimant group must constitute to a society with its own
‘normative’ system’.4 The need to prove this ‘normative society’ has led to
adoption of a single language or group term rather than the more fluid notion of
the group’s identify as expressed by Hansen.
Prior to the native title environment, the need to identify with a single language
or group name may not have had purpose. Group names were fluid and often
adopted for a single purpose of identification. For example, a group may have
met another group for the purposes of Law business and the terms used to
identify each group in the area would be reflective of that purpose. Once that
meeting was over, the names for the other groups would pass out of currency.
These multiple points of communication for Law, trade, marriage and a wide
variety of other needs would mean multiple terms for group identity were in
play at any one time. This fluidity of names was reflective of need rather than a
sense of self-identity. The need did not exist to self-identify for people who lived
within a single area and traded and communicated with other groups who lived
within a single area for thousands upon thousands of years.
Intermarriage, the practice of loaning words from other language groups, the
need for trade routes and Law practices and meetings meant multilingualism
was the norm. Rather than multilingualism with distinct languages, it was more a
case of multi-dialectalism.
This situation is reflected in the town of Leonora today where a form of ‘Leonora
talk’ brings together multiple dialects into a form of language 80%
comprehensible by all. 5
The linguistic work undertaken in 2011-12 has created a community very keen
to work further on the recording and preservation of their languages and the
associated cultural expressions. A great deal of work remains to be done and the
timing could not be more critical with single Elderly speakers of two of the
languages in increasingly frail health.
The desire to find and be assisted with sustainable methods to pass the
languages onto children, development of substantial dictionaries and learner’s
grammars has rejuvenated community interest in ways to keep the languages
alive and improve their currency.
4
5
Native Title Tribunal 2012
Hanson, 2012 Language comparison, Leonora and Goldfields
This work will continue, dependant on outcomes of funding requests for the
2012-15 period.
Sue Hanson
Linguist
June 2012
Rough Distribution of Vocabularies collected by Norman B. Tindale 1921-1976
The earliest attempt to map the languages of the Goldfields region was
undertaken by Tindale during his visits in the 1950s and 60s. Thus map
identifies the Kallamaya and Pini locations.