The History of the Papuan and Australian Languages

2018 ◽  
pp. 60-72
Keyword(s):  
History Of ◽  
Australian Languages

scholarly journals Reappraising the Eff ects of Language Contact in the Torres Strait

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erich Round ◽  
Jessica Hunter ◽  
Claire Bowern
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Relationship ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Considerable Influence ◽  
Loan Words ◽  
Linguistic Evidence ◽  
Phonological Features ◽  
History Of ◽  
Torres Strait ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Australian Languages

AbstractThe contact history of the languages of the Eastern and Western Torres Strait has been claimed (e.g. by Dixon 2002, Wurm 1972, and others) to have been sufficiently intense as to obscure the genetic relationship of the Western Torres Strait language. Some have argued that it is an Australian (Pama-Nyungan) language, though with considerable influence from the Papuan language Meryam Mir (the Eastern Torres Strait language). Others have claimed that the Western Torres language is, in fact, a genetically Papuan language, though with substantial Australian substrate or adstrate influence. Much has been made of phonological structures which have been viewed as unusual for Australian languages. In this paper we examine the evidence for contact claims in the region. We review aspects of the phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon of the Eastern and Western Torres Strait languages with an eye to identifying areal influence. This larger data pool shows that the case for intense contact has been vastly overstated. Beyond some phonological features and some loan words, there is no linguistic evidence for intense contact; moreover, the phonological features adduced to be evidence of contact are also found to be not specifically Papuan, but part of a wider set of features in Australian languages.

Australian Aboriginal Languages

2021 ◽  
pp. 67-102
Author(s):  
Tasaku Tsunoda
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Account ◽  
Careful Attention ◽  
Writing Systems ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Aboriginal Australians ◽  
Australian Aboriginal ◽  
History Of ◽  
Language Revitalisation ◽  
Aboriginal Languages ◽  
Australian Languages

The present chapter describes the decline and revitalisation of Australian Aboriginal languages—also called Australian languages. As preliminaries, it looks at the following: (i) a brief history of Aboriginal Australians, (ii) degrees of language viability, (iii) current situation of Australian languages, (iv) value of linguistic heritage, and (v) methods of language revitalisation. It then describes five selected language revitalisation activities, concerning Warrongo, Kaurna, Bandjalang, Thalanyji and Wiradjuri languages. In particular, it provides a detailed account of the Warrongo language revitalisation activity (in which the author has been participating). It finally examines a problem that is frequently encountered in language revitalisation activities: confusion over writing systems. The entire chapter pays careful attention to the changing political climate that surrounds Australian languages and activities for them.

Language death among Australian languages

1987 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 12-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
E.D. Fesl
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Language Shift ◽  
Policy Formulation ◽  
Language Death ◽  
Current Trends ◽  
Factors Influencing ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Australian Languages

Abstract This paper looks at the history of language policy formulation and implementation in conjunction with social factors influencing attitudes to both Koorie1 people and their languages. It endeavours to trace the process of enforced language shift, with consequent language death, in the social history of Australia. Factors which aid or are hastening language death in the contemporary period are also discussed. Attention is drawn to the rapidity with which language death has occurred and will continue to occur if measures are not taken to curb the current trends.

scholarly journals the Primacy of the Mother Tongue: Aboriginal literacy and Non-Standard English

2003 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 51-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Zeegers ◽  
Wayne Muir ◽  
Zheng Lin
Keyword(s):  
Learning Outcomes ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Indigenous Australians ◽  
Economic Systems ◽  
Standard English ◽  
Indigenous Australian ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
History Of ◽  
Deficit Theory ◽  
Australian Languages

AbstractThis article describes Indigenous Australian languages as having a history of pejoration dating from colonial times, which has masked the richness and complexity of mother tongues (and more recently developed kriols) of large numbers of Indigenous Australians.The paper rejects deficit theory representations of these languages as being inferior to imported dialects of English and explains how language issues embedded in teaching practices have served to restrict Indigenous Australian access to cultural capital most valued in modern socio-economic systems. We go on to describe ways in which alternative perspectives where acknowledgment of rich, complex and challenging features of Indigenous Australian languages may be used by educators as empowering resources for teacher education and teaching in schools. Our paper stresses the urgency of establishing frameworks for language success within which to develop other successful learning outcomes of Indigenous Australians.

scholarly journals When Worlds Collide in Legal Discourse. The Accommodation of Indigenous Australians’ Concepts of Land Rights Into Australian Law

2020 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-41
Author(s):  
Thomas Christiansen
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Indigenous Australians ◽  
Popular Imagination ◽  
Terra Nullius ◽  
Indigenous Groups ◽  
Linguistic Evidence ◽  
History Of ◽  
Torres Strait ◽  
The Right ◽  
Australian Languages

Abstract The right of Australian Indigenous groups to own traditional lands has been a contentious issue in the recent history of Australia. Indeed, Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders did not consider themselves as full citizens in the country they had inhabited for millennia until the late 1960s, and then only after a long campaign and a national referendum (1967) in favour of changes to the Australian Constitution to remove restrictions on the services available to Indigenous Australians. The concept of terra nullius, misapplied to Australia, was strong in the popular imagination among the descendants of settlers or recent migrants and was not definitively put to rest until the Mabo decision (1992), which also established a firm precedent for the recognition of native title. This path to equality was fraught and made lengthy by the fact that the worldviews of the Indigenous Australians (i.e. Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders) and the European (mainly British and Irish) settlers were so different, at least at a superficial level, this being the level at which prejudice is typically manifested. One area where this fact is particularly evident is in the area of the conceptualisation of property and especially the notion of land “ownership” and “use”. In this paper, we will focus on these terms, examining the linguistic evidence of some of the Australian languages spoken traditionally by Indigenous Australians as one means (the only one in many cases) of gaining an insight into their worldview, comparing it with that underlying the English language. We will show that the conceptualisations manifested in the two languages are contrasting but not irreconcilable, and indeed the ability of both groups of speakers (or their descendants in the case of many endangered Australian languages) to reach agreement and come to develop an understanding of the other’s perspective is reason for celebration for all Australians.

scholarly journals Gender Lender: Noun Borrowings between Jingulu and Mudburra in Northern Australia

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 440-478 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rob Pensalfini ◽  
Felicity Meakins
Keyword(s):  
Extended Period ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
The Other ◽  
Northern Australia ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
History Of ◽  
Gender System ◽  
High Degree ◽  
Australian Languages

This paper explores borrowing of nouns between two unrelated Australian languages with a long history of contact: Mudburra, a language with no grammatical gender, and Jingulu, which has four genders and super-classing. Unusually, this case involves extensive borrowing in both directions, resulting in the languages sharing 65% of their nouns. This bi-directional borrowing of nouns allows us to simultaneously examine the behaviour of gender where (i) nouns from a language with no gender have transferred into a language with a gender system, and (ii) nouns from a language with gender have transferred into a language with no gender system. Previous work in this area has been interested in the how nouns are categorised in scenario (i) (Deuchar et al., 2014; Jake et al., 2002; Liceras et al., 2008; Parafita Couto et al., 2015; Poplack et al., 1982), and whether there is any evidence for the development of a gender system in the recipient language in scenario (ii) (Aikhenvald, 2003; Corbett, 1991; Heath, 1978; Matras and Sakel, 2007; Seifart, 2012; Stolz, 2009; Stolz, 2012). We show that Mudburra nouns borrowed into Jingulu are assigned gender on the basis of their semantics, with gender superclassing effects and morpho-phonological massaging. Some of the borrowings into Mudburra, on the other hand, demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of Jingulu morpho-syntax which speaks to a high degree of bilingualism between Mudburra and Jingulu over an extended period.

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