Yugambeh Language

Yugambeh (or ''Mibanah'', from , 'language of men' or 'sound of eagles'), also known as Tweed-Albert Bandjalang, is an Australian Aboriginal language spoken by the Yugambeh living in South-East Queensland between and within the Logan River basin and the Tweed River basin, bounded to the east by the Pacific Ocean (including South Stradbroke Island) and in the west by the Teviot Ranges and Teviot Brook basin.

Yugambeh is dialect cluster of four dialects, one of four such clusters of the Bandjalangic branch of the Pama–Nyungan language family. A poorly attested variety called ''Ngarahgwal'' may belong to Yugambeh or to one of the other Bandjalang clusters.

Nomenclature

In the Yugambeh language, the word means an emphatic 'no', 'never' i.e. 'very much no' and is a common exonym for the people and their language. Language speakers use the word which means 'man', 'human', 'wedge-tailed eagle' and is the preferred endonym for the people; they call their language meaning 'of man', 'of human', 'of eagle' (the suffix forming the genitive of the word ).

''Yugambeh'' may also be referred to as:
*''Yugambir, Yugambeh'' ( Yugambal/Yugumbal was evidently a separate language located further west)
*''Yubumbee''
*''Jugumbir, Jukamba''
*Tweed-Albert language
*Nganduwal
*Ngarangwal
*''Manaldjali'' (a variant of ''Mununjali'', the name of a Yugambeh-speaking clan)
*''Minjanbal'' (probably from ''Minjungbal'', an alternate language term)

Geographic distribution

Yugambeh is spoken within the Logan, Albert, Coomera, Nerang, and Tweed River basins.

Phonology

Vowels

Yugambeh has a vowel system of four vowels that also contrast in length, resulting in eight phonemic vowels in total. The letter "h" is used after the vowel to indicate a long vowel.

Allophones

The low central vowel is fronted and raised between palatal consonants and a lateral/rhotic consonant.

Consonants

Compared to other Pama-Nyungan languages, Yugambeh has a smaller inventory of consonants. There are four places of articulation, with the consonants consisting of four obstruents, four nasals, two liquids, and two semivowels.

Obstruents

Obstruents do not have a voicing contrast, and can appear as fricative allophones. Obstruents are phonetically voiceless, except when following a homorganic consonant.

Grammar

The grammar of the Yugambeh language is highly agglutinative, making use of over 50 suffixes on nouns, verbs, adjectives and demonstratives.

Syntax

Syntax in the Yugambeh language is fairly free ordered, with a tendency towards SOV (subject–object–verb) structures. Adjectives and demonstratives part of noun phrases e.g. that man, a red car, stay adjacent to the noun they qualify.

Noun morphology

Nouns take a number of suffixes to decline for grammatical case.

Suffixes

Noun suffixes are placed into ten orders. A noun may not take more than one suffix from any order, and if more than one suffix is attached they must always be in the set order of the suffix orders, e.g. an order 7 suffix must always come after an order 5 suffix.

'X' stands for a homorganic obstruent.

'N' stands for a homorganic nasals.

#The comitative, purposive, desiderative, ablative and aversive suffixes are preceded by -bah on animate nouns.

1st order suffixes

-''gali'' (typified by) – used to indicate an association or link

Examples:

'shoe' lit. 'typified by foot'

'womaniser' lit. 'typified by women'

2nd order suffixes

''-gan'' (feminine) – used to form feminine nouns and some astrological terms

Examples:

'female singer'

3rd order suffixes

''-bur'' (diminutive) – used to form the diminutive of a noun, referring to a smaller version

Examples:

'toy boomerang'

4th order suffixes

''-Nah'' (possessive) – indicates current possession

Examples:

'our'

'of the moon/moon's'

''-Nahjil'' (past possessive) – indicates past possession

Examples:

'was of the parrot' (Billinudgel)

Verb morphology

Verbs are conjugated with the use of suffixes. It is an aspect-dominant language, as opposed to tense-dominant like most Western languages. Yugambeh suffixes mostly conjugate for aspect and mood.

Suffixes

Verb suffixes are placed in six orders. A verb may not take more than one suffix from an order, and similar to nouns, suffixes are attached in a set order. Combinations of these suffixes express all possible conjugations of Yugambeh verbs, with only a small number of combinations possible. Yugambeh verb stems are commonly two syllables in length and always in a vowel.

Adjective morphology

Adjectives can be marked with a suffix to indicate the gender of the noun they qualify.

Suffixes

*N stands for a homorganic nasal.

Demonstratives

Yugambeh possesses a complicated set of demonstratives that make a three-way distinction, with proximal, medial, and distal sets. There is a further distinguishing of demonstrative adjectives and location demonstratives. The adjective set can be additionally suffixed to create demonstrative pronouns'. The adjective set has three forms for "things in sight", "things hidden or not in sight" and "things not there anymore", while the location set has forms to indicate the general area and definite area, whether in sight or not in sight, and past and present forms.

Adjective set

The above set can be suffixed with order 7 noun suffixes to form demonstrative pronouns that function like ordinary independent nouns. e.g. 'Take this with you!'

The 'not in sight' and 'not here anymore' forms can take the order 2 noun suffix -gan to form time words. e.g. 'recently'.

Location set

App

The Yugambeh Museum in Beenleigh currently maintains a free dictionary app for the Yugambeh language, available on Android, iOS and a desktop version.

Place names

Modern place names with roots in the Yugambeh language include:
* Billinudgel – from , 'was of the parrot'
* Canungra – from , 'a long flat or clearing'
* Coomera/Upper Coomera – from , a species of wattle
* Jumpinpi – Pandanus root
* Mundoolun – from , the local name for the Common death adder
* Nindooinbah – from , 'the remains of a fire'
* Pimpama – from , 'a place of soldier birds'
* Tabragalba – from , 'a place of clubs'
* Tallebudgera – rotten or decayed logs
* Wongawallan – from the words ('pigeon') and ('water')

References

Further reading

* ''Dictionary of Yugambeh Including Neighbouring Dialects'', compiled by Margaret Sharpe, Pacific Linguistics: Australian National University, 1998.

External links

''Borobi and His Friends''
virtual book, read in Yugambeh language by Axel Best. From the State Library of Queensland virtual book collection. (requires Adobe Flash)

Linguist List (2005) Synopsis of ''Grammar and Texts of the Yugambeh-Bundjalung Dialect Chain in Eastern Australia
Accessed 20 May 2008

{{Pama–Nyungan languages, East

Yugambeh–Bundjalung languages
South East Queensland