Yidiny (also spelled Yidiɲ, Yidiñ, Jidinj, Jidinʲ, Yidinʸ, Yidiń ) is a nearly extinct Australian Aboriginal language, spoken by the

Yidinji people The Yidiny (also spelt Yidindj, Yidinji or Yidiñ), are an Aboriginal Australian people in Far North Queensland. Their language is the Yidiny language. Language The last fluent speakers of Yidiny were Tilly Fuller (d. October 1974), George Dav ...

of north-east

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , establishe ...

. Its traditional language region is within the local government areas of

Cairns Region The Cairns Region is a local government area in Far North Queensland, Queensland, Australia, centred on the regional city of Cairns. It was established in 2008 by the amalgamation of the City of Cairns and the Shires of Douglas and Mulgrave. H ...

and

Tablelands Region The Tablelands Region is a local government area in Far North Queensland, Australia inland from the city of Cairns. Established in 2008, it was preceded by four previous local government areas which dated back more than a century. On 1 January ...

, in such localities as Cairns,

Gordonvale Gordonvale is a rural sugar-growing town and Suburbs and localities (Australia), locality situated on the southern side of Cairns, Queensland, Cairns in the Cairns Region, Queensland, Australia. In the , the locality of Gordonvale had a populati ...

, and the

Mulgrave River The Mulgrave River, incorporating the East Mulgrave River and the West Mulgrave River, is a river system located in Far North Queensland, Australia. The -long river flows towards the Coral Sea and is located approximately south of . Locatio ...

, and the southern part of the Atherton Tableland including Atherton and Kairi.

Classification

Yidiny forms a separate branch of Pama–Nyungan. It is sometimes grouped with

Djabugay The Djabugay people (also known as Djabuganydji or Tjapukai) are a group of Australian Aboriginal people who are the original inhabitants of mountains, gorges, lands and waters of a richly forested part of the Great Dividing Range including th ...

as Yidinyic, but Bowern (2011) retains Djabugay in its traditional place within the

Paman languages The Paman languages are an Australian language family spoken on Cape York Peninsula, Queensland. First noted by Kenneth Hale, Paman is noteworthy for the profound phonological changes which have affected some of its descendants. Classifica ...

Phonology

Vowels

Yidiny has the typical Australian vowel system of /a, i, u/. Yidiny also displays contrastive vowel length.

Consonants

Yidiny consonants, with no underlyingly voiceless consonants, are posited. Dixon (1977) gives the two rhotics as a "trilled apical rhotic" and a "retroflex continuant".

Grammar

The Yidiny language has a number of particles that change the meaning of an entire clause. These, unlike other forms in the language, such as nouns, verbs and gender markers, have no grammatical case and take no tense inflections. The particles in the Yidiny language: ''nguju'' - 'not' (''nguju'' also functions as the negative interjection 'no'), ''giyi'' - 'don't', ''biri'' - 'done again', ''yurrga'' - 'still', ''mugu'' - 'couldn't help it' (''mugu'' refers to something unsatisfactory but that is impossible to avoid doing), ''jaymbi'' / ''jaybar'' - 'in turn'. E.g. 'I hit him and he ''jaymbi'' hit me', 'He hit me and I ''jaybar'' hit him'. Dixon states that "pronouns inflect in a nominative-accusative paradigm… deictics with human reference have separate cases for transitive subject, transitive object, and intransitive subject… whereas nouns show an absolutive–ergative pattern." Thus three

morphosyntactic alignment In linguistics, morphosyntactic alignment is the grammatical relationship between arguments—specifically, between the two arguments (in English, subject and object) of transitive verbs like ''the dog chased the cat'', and the single argument ...

s seem to occur: ergative–absolutive, nominative–accusative, and

tripartite Tripartite means composed of or split into three parts, or refers to three parties. Specifically, it may also refer to any of the following: * 3 (number) * Tripartite language * Tripartite motto * Tripartite System in British education * Triparti ...

Pronouns and deictics

Pronoun and other pronoun-like words are classified as two separate lexical categories. This is for morphosyntactic reasons: pronouns show nominative-accusative case marking, while demonstratives, deictics, and other nominals show absolutive-ergative marking.

Affixes

In common with several other Australian Aboriginal languages, Yidiny is an

agglutinative In linguistics, agglutination is a morphological process in which words are formed by stringing together morphemes, each of which corresponds to a single syntactic feature. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglutinative lang ...

ergative-absolutive language. There are many affixes which indicate a number of different grammatical concepts, such as the agent of an action (shown by ''-nggu''), the ablative case (shown by ''-mu'' or ''-m''), the past tense (shown by ''-nyu'') and the present and future tenses (both represented with the affix ''-ng''). There are also two affixes which lengthen the last vowel of the verbal root to which they are added, ''-Vli-'' and ''-Vlda'' (the capital letter 'V' indicates the lengthened final vowel of the verbal root). For example: ''magi-'' 'climb up' + ''ili'' + ''-nyu'' 'past tense affix' (giving ''magiilinyu''), ''magi-'' 'climb up' + ''ilda'' + ''-nyu'' 'past tense affix' (giving ''magiildanyu''). The affix ''-Vli-'' means 'do while going' and the affix ''-Vlda-'' means 'do while coming'. It is for this reason that they cannot be added to the verbs ''gali-'' 'go' or ''gada-'' 'come'. Therefore, the word ''magiilinyu'' means 'went up, climbing' and ''magiildanyu'' means 'came up, climbing'. One morpheme, ''-ŋa'', is an applicative in some verbs and a causative in others. For example, ''maŋga-'' 'laugh' becomes applicative ''maŋga-ŋa-'' 'laugh at' while ''warrŋgi-'' 'turn around' becomes causative ''warrŋgi-ŋa-'' 'turn something around'. The classes of verbs are not mutually exclusive however, so some words could have both meanings (''bila-'' 'go in' becomes ''bila-ŋa-'' which translates either to applicative 'go in with' or causative 'put in'), which are disambiguated only through context.

Affixes and number of syllables

There is a general preference in Yidiny that as many words as possible should have an even number of syllables. It is for this reason that the affixes differ according to the word to which they are added. For example: the past tense affix is ''-nyu'' when the verbal root has three syllables, producing a word that has four syllables: ''majinda-'' 'walk up' becomes ''majindanyu'' in the past tense, whereas with a disyllabic root the final vowel is lengthened and ''-Vny'' is added: ''gali-'' 'go' becomes ''galiiny'' in the past tense, thus producing a word that has two syllables. The same principle applies when forming the genitive: ''waguja-'' + ''-ni'' = ''wagujani'' 'man's' (four syllables), ''bunya-'' + ''-Vn-'' = ''bunyaan'' 'woman's'. The preference for an even number of syllables is retained in the affix that shows a relative clause: ''-nyunda'' is used with a verb that has two or four syllables (''gali-'' (two syllables) 'go' + ''nyunda'' = ''galinyunda''), giving a word that has four syllables whereas a word that has three or five syllables takes ''-nyuun'' (''majinda-'' (three syllables) 'walk up' + ''nyuun'' = ''majindanyuun''), giving a word that has four syllables.

Some words

* bunggu. 'Knee,' but more extensively: 'That part of the body of anything which, in moving, enables the rest of the body or object to be propelled.' This is used of the hump in a snake's back as it wriggles, the swish point of a crocodile's tail, or the wheel of a car or tractor. * jilibura. 'Green (tree) ant'. It was squeezed, and the 'milk' it yielded was then mixed with the ashes of a ( blue gum tree), or from a (

quandong Quandong, quandang or quondong, is a common name for the species '' Santalum acuminatum'' (desert, sweet, Western quandong), especially its edible fruit, but may also refer to * '' Aceratium concinnum'' (highroot quandong) * '' Peripentadenia mea ...

) or a bagirram tree, and the concoction then drunk to clear headaches. The classifier used for ants, , was used for all species, such as the ''gajuu'' (black tree ant) and (red ant), but never for a because it was different, having a medicinal use.Dixon (2011), 298–299.

References

External links

Ethnologue: Yidiny
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yidiny Language Agglutinative languages Yidinyic languages Endangered indigenous Australian languages in Queensland