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Marra Language
Marra, sometimes formerly spelt Mara, is an Australian Aboriginal language, traditionally spoken on an area of the Gulf of Carpentaria coast in the Northern Territory around the Roper, Towns and Limmen Bight Rivers. Marra is now an endangered language. The most recent survey was in 1991; at that time, there were only 15 speakers, all elderly. Most Marra people now speak Kriol as their main language. The remaining elderly Marra speakers live in the Aboriginal communities of Ngukurr, Numbulwar, Borroloola and Minyerri. Marra is a prefixing language with three noun classes (masculine, feminine, and neuter) and a singular-plural-dual distinction. It is characterized by an intricate aspectual system, elaborate kin terms, no definite structure for relative clause construction, and a complex demonstrative system. Unlike many languages in the area, it has little avoidance language and no difference in the speech of male and female speakers. Language and speakers Marra is a me ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maran Languages
Maran or Maric is an extinct branch of the Pama–Nyungan languages, Pama–Nyungan family of Australian languages formerly spoken throughout much of Queensland by many of the Murri peoples. The well attested Maric languages are clearly related; however, many languages of the area became extinct before much could be documented of them, and their classification is uncertain. The clear Maric languages are: :Bidyara language, Bidyara (numerous varieties) :Biri language, Biri (several varieties) :Warrungu language, Warrungu (& Gugu-Badhun, Gudjal) :(Kingkel languages, Kingkel?): Darumbal language, Darumbal Dharumbal was added by Bowern (2011); it had been classified in the Kingkel branch of Waka–Kabic languages, Waka–Kabic. It is not clear if the other Kingkel language, Bayali language, Bayali, is also Maric; Bayali and Darumbal are not close. Unclassified languages Ngaro language, Ngaro and Giya language, Giya (Bumbarra), spoken on the coast, may also have been Maric, the lat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Borroloola, Northern Territory
Borroloola ( local Aboriginal languages: ''Burrulula'') is a town in the Northern Territory of Australia. It is located on the McArthur River, about 50 km upstream from the Gulf of Carpentaria. Location Borroloola lies on the traditional country of the Yanyuwa people, on the coastal plain between the Barkly Tablelands and the Gulf of Carpentaria. Rivers that run from the Tablelands escarpment to the Gulf regularly flood in the wet season, making travel on the unsealed section of Highway One along the coastal plain to Queensland impossible. The rivers of this region have carved spectacular gorges through sandstone deposits in their upper reaches. The rivers and coastal areas are host to barramundi, earning Borroloola a reputation among sports fisherman, and also to the deadly saltwater crocodile. The region has little rain from May to September and is characterised by lightly treed Savanna grasslands. History Garrwa (also known as Garawa) is a language of the Gulf regio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Patrilineal
Patrilineality, also known as the male line, the spear side or agnatic kinship, is a common kinship system in which an individual's family membership derives from and is recorded through their father's lineage. It generally involves the inheritance of property, rights, names, or titles by persons related through male kin. This is sometimes distinguished from cognate kinship, through the mother's lineage, also called the spindle side or the distaff side. A patriline ("father line") is a person's father, and additional ancestors, as traced only through males. Traditionally and historically people would identify the person's ethnicity with the father's heritage and ignore the maternal ancestry in the ethnic factor. In the Bible In the Bible, family and tribal membership appears to be transmitted through the father. For example, a person is considered to be a priest or Levite, if his father is a priest or Levite, and the members of all the Twelve Tribes are called Israelites because ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jeffrey Heath
Jeffrey Heath (born November 29, 1949) is Professor of Historical linguistics, Historical Linguistics, Morphology (linguistics), Morphology, Arabic and Linguistic anthropology, Linguistic Anthropology at the University of Michigan, US. He is known particularly for his work in historical linguistics and for his extensive Field research, fieldwork. He received his B.A. summa cum laude from Harvard College in 1971, the M.A. from the University of Chicago in 1973, and his Ph.D. from the same institution in 1976. From 1973 to 1977 he was a research fellow at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. From 1977 to 1982 he was assistant professor of linguistics at Harvard, from 1982 to 1985, associate professor. In 1987 he moved to the University of Michigan as visiting associate professor. He has held the rank of professor since 1989. His research is based on more than ten years of fieldwork: first on Australian languages (1970s; primarily in Arnhem Land on Macro-Gunwinyguan lang ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yanyuwa Language
Yanyuwa (), is the language of the Yanyuwa people of the Sir Edward Pellew Group of Islands in the Gulf of Carpentaria outside Borroloola ( jao, Burrulula) in the Northern Territory, Australia. Yanyuwa, like many other Australian Aboriginal languages, is a highly agglutinative language with ergative-absolutive alignment, whose grammar is pervaded by a set of 16 noun classes whose agreements are complicated and numerous. Yanyuwa is a critically endangered language. The anthropologist John Bradley has worked with the Yanyuwa people for three decades and is also a speaker of Yanyuwa. He has produced a large dictionary and grammar of the language, along with a cultural atlas in collaboration with a core group of senior men and women. Phonology Yanyuwa is extremely unusual in having 7 places of articulation for stops, compared to 3 for English and 4–6 for most other Australian languages. Also quite unique is the fact that Yanyuwa has no voiceless phoneme, as all its consonants ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
West Barkly Languages
The Ngurlun languages, also known as Eastern Mirndi, are a branch of the Mirndi languages spoken around in the Barkly Tableland of Northern Territory, Australia. The branch consists of two to four languages, depending on what is considered a dialect: Ngarnka, Wambaya, and often Binbinka and Gurdanji. The group was formerly thought to be most closely related to the Jingulu language Jingulu, also spelt Djingili, is an Australian language spoken by the Jingili people in the Northern Territory of Australia, historically around the township of Elliot. The language is one of several languages of the West Barkly family. The J ..., with this larger group called West Barkly or simply Barkly, but the connection is no longer thought to be genealogical. References Indigenous Australian languages in the Northern Territory {{ia-lang-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Binbinga
The Binbinga, also pronounced Binbinka, are an Indigenous Australian people of the Northern Territory of Australia. Language Binbinga is a dialect classified as a variety of the Ngurlun branch of the Mirndi languages, closely related to Wambaya, to the degree that Wambaya, Binbinka and Gudanji are often treated as dialects of a single language. The Binbinga were among these tribes, and today only 89 speakers of Wambaya remain. When someone died, the widow, mother and a number of other female kin were banned from speaking until the deceased had undergone his second, final burial rite. Country The Binbinga's traditional lands consisted of some running southeast from the Old Bauhinia Downs, encompassing; the McArthur River Station and Campbell Camp, and the upper limits of the McArthur and Glyde Rivers. Their camps on the McArthur river were described as very picturesque, with " pitched among shady native figs, Leichhardt pines, paperbarks and screw pines, close to the banks ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alawa Language
Alawa (Galawa) is a moribund Indigenous Australian language spoken by the Alawa people of the Northern Territory. In 1991, there were reportedly 18 remaining speakers and 4 semi-speakers. Phonology Consonants Alawa has a typical consonant inventory for an Indigenous Australian language, with five contrastive places of articulation, multiple lateral consonants, and no voicing contrast among the stops. Note: there are no standardised IPA symbols for alveopalatal stops. Vowels The vowel system of Alawa is made up of four vowel phonemes: the high front vowel /i/, the high back vowel /u/, the mid front vowel /e/, and the low central vowel /a/. There are no rounding contrasts or length contrasts in this language. Vocabulary Capell (1942) lists the following basic vocabulary items:Capell, Arthur. 1941–1942, 1942–1943Languages of Arnhem Land, North Australia ''Oceania'' 12: 364–392, 13: 24–51. : See also * References External links Bibliography of Alawa languag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pama–Nyungan Languages
The Pama–Nyungan languages are the most widespread family of Australian Aboriginal languages, containing 306 out of 400 Aboriginal languages in Australia. The name "Pama–Nyungan" is a merism: it derived from the two end-points of the range: the Pama languages of northeast Australia (where the word for "man" is ) and the Nyungan languages of southwest Australia (where the word for "man" is ). The other language families indigenous to the continent of Australia are occasionally referred to, by exclusion, as non-Pama–Nyungan languages, though this is not a taxonomic term. The Pama–Nyungan family accounts for most of the geographic spread, most of the Aboriginal population, and the greatest number of languages. Most of the Pama–Nyungan languages are spoken by small ethnic groups of hundreds of speakers or fewer. The vast majority of languages, either due to disease or elimination of their speakers, have become extinct, and almost all remaining ones are endangered in some ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Avoidance Speech
Avoidance speech is a group of sociolinguistic phenomena in which a special restricted speech style must be used in the presence of or in reference to certain relatives. Avoidance speech is found in many Australian Aboriginal languages and Austronesian languages as well as some North American languages, Highland East Cushitic languages and Southern Bantu languages. Chinese naming taboo prohibits speaking and writing syllables or characters that appear in the names of esteemed people, such as emperors, parents, and ancestors. Avoidance speech styles tend to have the same phonology and grammar as the standard language they are a part of. The lexicon, however, tends to be smaller than in normal speech since the styles are only used for limited communication. Australia Mother-in-law languages Avoidance speech in Australian Aboriginal languages is closely tied to elaborate tribal kinship systems in which certain relatives are considered taboo. Avoidance relations differ fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Demonstrative
Demonstratives (abbreviated ) are words, such as ''this'' and ''that'', used to indicate which entities are being referred to and to distinguish those entities from others. They are typically deictic; their meaning depending on a particular frame of reference and cannot be understood without context. Demonstratives are often used in spatial deixis (where the speaker or sometimes the listener are to provide context), but also in intra-discourse reference (including abstract concepts) or anaphora, where the meaning is dependent on something other than the relative physical location of the speaker, for example whether something is currently being said or was said earlier. Demonstrative constructions include demonstrative adjectives or demonstrative determiners, which qualify nouns (as in ''Put that coat on''); and demonstrative pronouns, which stand independently (as in ''Put that on''). The demonstratives in English are ''this'', ''that'', ''these'', ''those'', and the archaic ''y ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
