Dhauwurd Wurrung language

Dhauwurd Wurrung is a term used for a group of languages spoken by various groups of the Gunditjmara people of the Western District of Victoria, Australia. Keerray Woorroong (also spelt Girai Wurrung and variants) is regarded by some as a separate language, by others as a dialect. The dialect continuum consisted of various lects such as Kuurn Kopan Noot, Big Wurrung, Gai Wurrung, and others (each with variant spellings). There was no traditional name for the entire dialect continuum and it has been classified and labelled differently by different linguists and researchers. The group of languages is also referred to as Gunditjmara language and the Warrnambool language.

Gunditjmara Dialect Continuum
Dhauwurd Wurrung
Gurnditjmara
Native toAustralia
RegionVictoria
EthnicityGunditjmara (Dhauwurd wurrung), Djargurd Wurrung, Girai wurrung, ?Gadubanud
ExtinctBefore 1975
Pama–Nyungan
  • Kulinic
    • Gunditjmara Dialect Continuum
Dialects
  • Keerray Woorroong
  • Koornkopanoot
  • Gaiwurrung
  • Djargurd Wurrong
  • Wulluwurrung
  • Wirngilgnad dhalinanong
Language codes
ISO 639-3Either:
gjm – Gunditjmara
wkr – Keerray-Woorroong
Glottologwarr1257
AIATSIS[1]S20 Dhauwurd Wurrung, S25 Keerray-Woorroong
ELPWarrnambool

Efforts to revive the language(s) are ongoing.

Country

The language in its several varieties, was spoken from Glenelg to the Gellibrand and through to roughly 100 kilometres (60 mi) inland.[2]

The effects of the colonisation of Victoria, which included the Eumeralla Wars, along with later government policies leading to the stolen generation, had a drastic and ongoing negative effect on the languages. Today the descendants of the speakers of these lects commonly refer to themselves as Gunditjmara, a term derived from an affix used to denote membership with a specific group of locality.

Dialects and alternative names

AIATSIS (AUSTLANG) uses the name and spelling "Dhauwurd Wurrung" for the main grouping, following the Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages and Ian Clark, and gives also detail on alternative groupings and names suggested by various other linguists. Alternative spellings include Djargurd Wurrung, Thaguwurung, Tyaupurt wurung, Dauwert woorong, Dhauhwurru, Dhau-urt-wuru, Tourahonong, and many others, and the language group is also referred to as the Warrnambool language or the Gunditjmara language.[1] Gunditj Wurrung, meaning "Gunditj language" is used by a contemporary teacher of the language, Gunditjmara musician Corey Theatre.[3][4]

Keerray Woorroong (Girai Wurrung, Kirrae wuurong, Kiriwurrung, etc.) is regarded by the Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages (following Clark) as a separate language;[5] it is of the Girai wurrung people

Gadubanud (Tindale Katubanut), also Yarro waetch, "Cape Otway tribe", was spoken by a group known as the Gadubanud, of the Cape Otway area. Barry Blake regards this as a dialect of the Warrnambool language, but Krishna-Pillay does not.[6]

Djargurd Wurrong (Warn tallin, Warn thalayn,[7] Tjarcote, Dhautgart/Keerray (wurru))[8] was the language of the Djargurd Wurrong people.

Other dialects or alternative names include:[lower-alpha 1]

  • Koornkopanoot (Kuurn Kopan Noot[9] also spelt Kurnkupanut by Blake[10])
  • Bi:gwurrung (Peek-Whurrung and variants, "the Port Fairy tribe")[11][8]
  • Gaiwurrung (Kii wuurong,Kayiwurrung)[12][8]
  • Wulluwurrung (Wuluwurrung, Woolwoowurrong)[13]
  • Wirngilgnad dhalinanong (Wirngill gnat tallinanong) (regarded as a sub-dialect of Giraiwurrung by Clark)[14]
  • Koort-Kirrup?[8] Only recorded by Dixon; Clark says that Koort-Kirrup is the name of a person who spoke Wulluwurung[15]

Characteristics and significant words

Speakers of these languages had a form of avoidance speech called gnee wee banott (turn tongue) which required special terms and grammar in conversations when a man and mother-in-law were speaking in each other's company.[16] Thus, if one asked: "Where are you going just now?", this would be phrased in normal speech as:[17]

  • Wuunda gnin kitneean?

In Gunditjmara avoidance speech the same sentiment would be articulated quite differently:[17]

  • Wuun gni gnin gninkeewan?

Ngamadjidj

The term ngamadjidj was used to denote white people by the Gunditjmara,[18][19] with the same word used in the Wergaia dialect of the Wemba Wemba language. The word is also used to refer to ghosts, as people with pale skins were thought to be the spirits of ancestors. The first known use is to refer to William Buckley, an escaped convict who lived with the Wathaurong people near Geelong from 1803 until 1856.[20]

The term was also applied to John Green, manager at Coranderrk, an Aboriginal reserve north-east of Melbourne between 1863 and 1924. It was also recorded as being used to describe other missionaries such as William Watson in Wellington, New South Wales, by the local Wiradjuri people. The term was a compliment, as it meant that the local people thought that they had been an Aboriginal person once - based largely on the fact that they could speak the local language.[21]

Ngamadjidj is also the name given to a rock art site in a shelter in the Grampians National Park, sometimes translated as the "Cave of Ghosts".[22]

Status and language revival

Only three speakers were known to speak the language still by 1880, with another four still fluent in the Bi:gwurrung (Peek-Whurrung) dialect.[23] No fluent speakers have been recorded between 1975 and the 2016 Australian census.[1]

There are several ongoing efforts to revive the Gunditjmara language. These include the Gunditj Wurrung online lesson series on YouTube[3] and the Laka Gunditj Language Program.[24] Proponents of the revival of the language include Vicki Couzens and Corey Theatre, who uses music as a medium for language revival.[4]

Gunditjmara composer, singer and guitarist, Corey Theatre in collaboration with Australian composer and music director Iain Grandage created the Gunditjmara Six Seasons. The piece is sung entirely in the Gunditjmara language and was performed in collaboration with Aboriginal (Gunditjmara and Bundjalung) Australian musician Archie Roach at the 2016 Port Fairy Spring Music Festival.[25]

Australian composer and soprano, Deborah Cheetham, wrote Australia's first requiem based on the frontier wars between Aboriginal Australian people in South Western Victoria and settlers which is sung entirely in the Gunditjmara language.[26] The first performance of the requiem, "Eumeralla, a war requiem for peace"[26] on 15 June 2019 in Melbourne featured Cheetham with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, the MSO Chorus and the Dhungala Children's Choir.[26]

Phonology

A likely phonemic inventory for the Warrnambool language is shown below.

Consonants
Labial Dental Alveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar
Stop p t̪ t ʈ c k
Nasal m n̪ n ɳ ɲ ŋ
Lateral l̪ l ɭ ʎ
Tap/Trill ɾ~r
Approximant ɽ
Semi-vowel j w

Rhotic consonants were not distinguished in older sources. It is unclear to determine whether the retroflex consonant was a glide or a flap. Both were written as r.

Although most Australian Aboriginal languages use three vowels /a/, /i/, and /u/, the amount of vowels are not clearly distinguished within the other sources for the Warrnambool language. There is some fluctuation between /i/ and /e/, and /u/ and /o/. In the orthography adopted by Blake, 'where there was a back vowel occurring before a syllable-final palatal, /o/ was used instead of /u/, to give a better idea of the more likely pronunciation (i.e. puroyn "night")'.[27]

Footnotes
  1. AIATSIS primary spellings as of 2021 are used for this list.

References
  1. S20 Dhauwurd Wurrung at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies  (see the info box for additional links)
  2. Blake 2003, pp. xiii, 2.
  3. "Gunditj Wurrung". Youtube. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
  4. "Corey Theatre Keeps Traditional Language Alive". BroadSheet. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
  5. S25 Keerray Woorroong at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
  6. S71 Gadubanud at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
  7. S73 Djargurd Wurrong at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
  8. Dixon, R. M. W. (2002). Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development. Cambridge University Press. p. xxxv.
  9. S75 Koornkopanoot at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
  10. Blake 2003, pp. 8–12.
  11. S77 Bi:gwurrung at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
  12. S74 Gaiwurrung at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
  13. S81 Wulluwurrung at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
  14. S80 Wirngilgnad dhalinanong at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
  15. S82 Koort-Kirrup at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
  16. Blake 2003, p. 8.
  17. Dawson 1881, p. 29.
  18. Clark, I. (1995). Scars in the Landscape: A Register of Massacre Sites in Western Victoria, 1803-1859. EBL ebooks online. Aboriginal Studies Press. p. 177. ISBN 978-0-85575-595-9. Retrieved 12 July 2020.
  19. Clark, I. (1995). Scars in the Landscape: A Register of Massacre Sites in Western Victoria, 1803-1859. EBL ebooks online. Aboriginal Studies Press. p. 11. ISBN 978-0-85575-595-9. Retrieved 12 July 2020.
  20. Dooley, G.; Clode, D. (2019). The First Wave: Exploring early coastal contact history in Australia. Wakefield Press. p. 30. ISBN 978-1-74305-615-8. Retrieved 12 July 2020.
  21. Clark, Ian; Cahir, Fred (2014). "6. John Green, Manager of Coranderrk Aboriginal Station, but also a ngamadjidj? New insights into His Work with Victorian Aboriginal People in the Nineteenth Century". In Brett, Mark; Havea, J. (eds.). Colonial Contexts and Postcolonial Theologies: Storyweaving in the Asia-Pacific. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 129–144. doi:10.1057/9781137475473_9. ISBN 978-1-349-50181-6. Retrieved 12 July 2020. Whole e-book
  22. "Ngamadjidj Shelter". Grampians Point. Retrieved 12 July 2020.
  23. Dawson 1881, p. 4.
  24. "Laka Gunditj Language Program". Gunditj Mirring. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
  25. "Port Fairy Spring Music Festival mixes new and old". The Standard. Retrieved 24 January 2021.
  26. "Eumeralla, a war requiem for peace". National Indigenous Times. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  27. Blake 2003.

Further reading
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