The Laragiya language, also spelt Larrakia (deriving from
Larrakia people
The Larrakia people are a group of Aboriginal Australian people in and around Darwin in the Northern Territory. The Larrakia, who refer to themselves as "Saltwater People", had a vibrant traditional society based on a close relationship with ...
), and also known as Gulumirrgin, is an
Australian Aboriginal language spoken by just six people near the city of
Darwin in northern Australia as of 1983. Only 14 people claimed to know the Laragiya language in 2016.
Laragiya was once considered a
language isolate, but Mark Harvey has made a case for it being part of a family of
Darwin Region languages
The Darwin Region languages are a small family
Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain ...
.
Linguist
Arthur Capell
Arthur Capell (28 March 1902 β 10 August 1986) was an Australian linguist, who made major contributions to the study of Australian languages, Austronesian languages and Papuan languages.
Early life
Capell was born in Newtown, New South Wales ...
wrote,
:"Even in 1950 there were no children speaking it, and most of the older people who spoke it in 1952 (when the bulk of these notes was gathered) were found on the
Delissaville Reserve (now
Belyuen ), across the harbour from Darwin. By 1968, reports of only two speakers could be gained, and these far away from Darwin. In former times, however, the tribe was fairly large, and its territory extended to the
Adelaide River
The Adelaide River is a river in the Northern Territory of Australia.
Course and features
The river rises in the Litchfield National Park and flows generally northwards to Clarence Strait, joined by eight tributaries including the west branc ...
, where it joined that of a tribe called "
Woolna" by the early writers, while on the south-east it was bounded by the
Warrai. These latter languages are practically unrecorded.
:"The present outline of
Laragia is based on notes taken at various periods, chiefly 1949 and 1952. The notes have been systematised as far as possible, but they make no claim to provide a fully laid out grammar, especially on the phonetic level."
Phonology
Consonants
* /Ι½/ appears in some dialects.
Vowels
* /o/ can have an allophone of
* The sound variation of
΅~Κis written as one vowel sound ''ΓΆ''.
"Morphophonemic rules are not so complex in Laragia as in
Maung and
Jiwadja, though some are shared between the three languages. One in particular is shared with
Ngarinyin
The Ngarinyin or Ngarinjin are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Their language, Ngarinyin, is also known as Ungarinyin. When referring to their traditional lands, they refer to themselves as Wilinggi ...
in the Northern
Kimberley Division of
Western Australia
Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...
. The chief difficulties in setting up an
orthography
An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation.
Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and ...
for Laragia are due to certain
morphophonemic
Morphophonology (also morphophonemics or morphonology) is the branch of linguistics that studies the interaction between morphological and phonological or phonetic processes. Its chief focus is the sound changes that take place in morphemes (mi ...
rules, but others arise from the indefinite pronunciations..."
Morphology
Concord formation
"Laragia is a member of the multiple-classifying language group, but has the somewhat unusual practice of combining prefixes and suffixes in the formation of the concord. The Laragia
concord
Concord may refer to:
Meaning "agreement"
* Pact or treaty, frequently between nations (indicating a condition of harmony)
* Harmony, in music
* Agreement (linguistics), a change in the form of a word depending on grammatical features of other ...
is shown by a discontinuous
morpheme
A morpheme is the smallest meaningful constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology.
In English, morphemes are often but not necessarily words. Morphemes that stand alone are ...
- at least in many cases, but not in the verb - partly prefixal and partly suffixal.
"It is what
Zellig Harris
Zellig Sabbettai Harris (; October 23, 1909 β May 22, 1992) was an influential American linguist, mathematical syntactician, and methodologist of science. Originally a Semiticist, he is best known for his work in structural linguistics and dis ...
called a 'broken sequence'. It may be mentioned in passing that the majority of the multiple-classifying languages in North Australia used prefixal forms to mark the classes, but a few, such as
Worora
Worora is a village in the commune of Parakou in the Borgou Department of central-eastern Benin. It is located west of Parakou city centre along the RNIE 6
RNIE 6 is a national highway of Benin located in the east of the country.
Cities an ...
and
Unggumi
The Unggumi, also written ''Ongkomi'', are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Kimberley region of Western Australian.
Country
Norman Tindale estimated that the Unggumi's traditional territorial lands stretch over some , centered on the uppe ...
in the Northern Kimberley Division of Western Australia, have vestigial suffixes, while a few on the
Barkly Tablelands in the eastern part of the
Northern Territory
The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory shares its borders with Western Aust ...
use only suffixes. These phenomena suggest that the languages originally had, as Laragia still does, markers at each end of the word.''"
Larrakia Elder Robert Mills of Batji Tours
Batji Tours
is able to name plants and animals. Lorraine Williams, a Larrakia woman and Research Associate with the School of Australian Indigenous Knowledge Systems published online, "For a lot of my life I have been involved in and have given evidence as a claimant in the Kenbi Land Claim and the Darwin Native Title proceedings. I am currently working on Larrakia Cultural Heritage Management focusing on Larrakia archaeological sites in the Darwin region and I have a keen interest in all things Larrakia. In years gone by I have worked on Larrakia ethnobiology with the view to keeping Larrakia language and culture strong. I am a member of the Batcho family of the Larrakia Nation Aboriginal Corporation".
The Larrakia have in the past referred to themselves as Gulumerrgin. Gulumerrgin is one of the names for the language spoken by the Larrakia.
Vocabulary
Capell
Capell or Capel is a surname. Notable people with the name include:
Capell
* Arthur Capell, 1st Baron Capell of Hadham (1608β1649), English politician
* Arthur Capell, 1st Earl of Essex (1631β1683), English statesman
* Arthur Capell (1902β1 ...
(1940) lists the following basic vocabulary items:[Capell, Arthur. 1940]
The Classification of Languages in North and North-West Australia
''Oceania'' 10(3): 241-272, 404-433.
:
References
External links
Resources in and about the Laragia language
Open Language Archives website (accessed 3 December 2010)
* Bibliographies o
publishedrare
o
special
materials on Larrakia language and people, at the
{{DEFAULTSORT:Laragiya Language
Darwin Region languages
Extinct languages of the Northern Territory
Language isolates of Australia