South-coast words: Merimbula

A personal diary entry from January 1984 has the record: “Later we all set off by car headed for Twofold Bay150 km away approx. Did this via Bermagui and Merimbula.” Two placenames of interest are mentioned. What might they mean? As usual, McCarthy and Tyrell have something to say:

Bermagui:

"Bermagui" barmaguwi = "Resembling a canoe with paddles" canoe— : McCarthy [:6:3] []

Merimbula:

"Merimbula" mirimbula = "Big snake; place of two waters or lakes" waterhole two— : McCarthy [:13:31] []

"Merimbula" mirimbula = "Two waters, or divided lake" waterhole two— : Tyrrell [:29:14] []

But are McCarthy and Tyrell right?

Bermagui

This could be respelt:

—birma-guwi

—ba(r)ma-guwi

—bu(r)ma-guwi

birma

The ‘SOUTH’ database in the BYALA database series gave no responses for ‘birma’

ba(r)ma / bu(r)ma

There were some responses to the bama (and variants) search, as follows:

"Barmagagang"	bamaga-gang =	"log"	log  :	Mathews 8006/3/5 -5 [:177:13.1] [Dwl]
"[yugundu barmaiadha barmagangga-ba dhurragangga]"	bama-ya-da =	"[he stepped [slippt?] on / a log / [stream-in] ]"	step did he:	Mathews 8006/3/6- Nbk 4 [DWL] [:25:11.1] [Dwl]
"[yugundu barmaiadha barmagangga-ba dhurragangga]"	bamagang-Ga =	"[he stepped [slippt?] on / a log / [stream-in]]"	log on :	Mathews 8006/3/6- Nbk 4 [DWL] [:25:11.2] [Dwl]
"Barmagamburnang"	bamagamburnang =	"a big log"	log big  :	Mathews 8006/3/5 -5 [:177:13.1] [Dwl]
"bummat"	bamad =	"Knee"	knee  :	Mathews NRGU 1908 [:337:30] [Nrgu]
"[Boomaningga gunna]"	buma-ni-ngGa =	"[I’m going up the hill — I going up / hill]"	ascend will I:	Mathews 8006/3/7- No 7 [:26:19.21] [Gga]
"Boomurra"	bumara =	"wind, very strong, from any quarter"	wind  wind, high:	Mathews 8006/3/7/ - CRITERION [:73:4] [Dwl]
"[Boomaningga gunna]"	buma-ni-ngGa =	"[I’m going up the hill — I going up / hill]"	ascend will I:	Mathews 8006/3/7- No 7 [:26:19.21] [Gga]
"Boomaningga"	buma-ni-ngGa =	"up I will go; "	ascend will I:	Mathews GGA PAPS [:147:14.11] [Gga]

This database, which consists of around 12 500 records, gives little real assistance. bama or its variants, and excluding verbs (which seem unlikely for the name of a place) might mean ‘log’, ‘knee’ or ‘wind’. And there were almost no instances of the suffix ‘-guwi’. So bamaguwi remains a mystery.

Merimbula

This could be respelt: 

—mirim-bula

—miri-mbula

—marim-bula

—mari-mbula

It is common in indigenous languages of the region for prenasalisation of /n/ and /b/ to occur, to produce /nd/ and /mb/. This might or might not be happening in mirimbula.

The only responses for mirim were:

"mírrimbi-dyá"	mirimbidya =	"conduct contrary to tribal law"	:	Mathews GGA Myth [:35:19] [Gga]
"Mirrimbidya"	mirimbidya =	"is when a woman holds a rug [?] over a man. The pirrimbir cannot spear him"	:	Mathews 8006/3/7/ - CRITERION [:49:1.2] [[Dwl/Gga ?]]
"mirrimbâlang"	mirimbalang =	"[NO ENTRY] or"	himself  :	Mathews 8006/3/5 -5 [:133:1.1] [Gga]
"mittimbâlang"	midimbalang =	"[NO ENTRY]"	SELF  him:	Mathews 8006/3/5 -5 [:133:1.2] [Gga]

This was of very little use. 

There was nothing for either mari or marim.

Hoswever, for miri, there was a rich trove. The following are just a few examples:

"Mirri"	miri =	"a dog"	dog  :	Mathews NGWL [:295:6.1] [Gga/Ngwl]
"Mirridya"	miri-dya =	"My dog (dog my)"	dog  me-of:	Mathews NGWL [:295:27.1] [Gga/Ngwl]
"Mirridyi"	miri-dyi =	"Thy dog"	dog  thee-of:	Mathews NGWL [:295:28.1] [Gga/Ngwl]
"Mirribuladya"	miri-bula-dya =	"dogs both mine"	dog two  me-of:	Mathews NGWL [:295:32.1] [Gga/Ngwl]
"mirridyimmadya"	miri-dyima-dya =	"dogs several mine"	dog plenty  me-of:	Mathews NGWL [:295:32.2] [Gga/Ngwl]
"mirrigang"	miri-gang =	"Dog"	dog  :	Mathews NRGU 1908 [:338:24] [Nrgu]

This is a very ‘doggish’ response. But what of bula?

This was an even richer lode, or which the following are three instances:

"Bulla"	bula =	"Gundungurra: 2"	two  :	Mathews 8006/3/7- No 7 [:36:14] [Gga]
"Pulla"	bula =	"two "	two  :	SofM 1897 04 30 [p.106.5: Wollondilly R.] [:107:9] [Gga]
"bular"	bula =	"two"	two  :	KAOL Ridley [WODI] [:113:27] [Wodi]

In fact bula is found practically across the Australian mainland as meaning ‘two’.

Conclusion

The Geographcal Names Board website gives the following information about meanings:

Bermagui: Aboriginal: canoe or better, canoe with paddles. On an early plan appears as Permageua. (Reed 1967)

Merimbula: Aboriginal. Also: from 'Merimboola' for 'big snake' or 'place of two waters or lakes'. (McCarthy; 1963). Endacott (1955) says Merrimbula means Two waterholes.

<http://www.gnb.nsw.gov.au/name_search/extract?id=ujIOlMtL> and <http://www.gnb.nsw.gov.au/name_search/extract?id=anjtlMZTGH>

The SOUTH database did not come up with any likely matches for either ‘canoe’ or ‘paddle’ for Bermagui.

But it would seem from information on the SOUTH database quite likely that Merimbula might mean ‘two dogs’.

MURUWARI WORDS wan: Negative imperative: don't

The word “waan”, spelt with a long double-a, appears fairly frequently in the work of Lynette Oates:

Oates, Lynette Frances. 1988. The Muruwari language. Canberra: Dept. of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University

and is shown as meaning ‘tree’, or ‘stick’.

So when wan arose in the following:

wan	puumpi-ta	wii
hey!	blow-IMP	fire-ABS

Hey you, blow the fire up!

it looked as possibly wrong. This was a sentence abvout ‘fire’, and it seemed as though there might be a mistake: wan might not be an interjection (‘hey!’) but more probably something to do with a tree (perhaps on fire) or stick (to put on the fire).

In the second wan occurrence, however, there seemed to no possible connection with ‘tree’ or ‘stick’. Instead, the imperative as claimed by Oates seemed plausible:

wan	witji	tha-n-muka
hey!	meat-ABS	eat-R-CONT+IMP

Eat your meat!

Nevertheless wan still seemed an unlikely interjection — ‘wan’ as a sound just seemed too feeble, perhaps owing to the English ‘wan’ meaning pallid, weary, sickly and generally weak.

So an enquiry was made to see if other inland NSW languages could shed any light on wan. The following instances were uncovered:

"wunna !"	wana =	"far be it!" :	not so	KAOL Ridley [KML] [:37:36] [KML]
"Wai!"	wayi =	"look out"	look out!  :	Mathews WIRA 1904 [:291:9.2] [WIRA]
"wah"	wa =	"beware, or exclamation of surprise"	beware!  :	Mitchell, J.F.H 9CY reel 681 [:109:] [WIRA]

This confirmed that a word beginning wa- could indeed be an exclamation. And this discovery in turn prompted a wider enquiry encompassing the coastal languages of NSW, to see if wa- or wan- words turned up in any of those, with similar connotations. There were a number of occurrences.

For Minyung in the far north-east of the state, wana had the sense of negative imperative, ‘don’t’:

"wana"

wana =

"... negative of the imperative. It means ‘leave it alone..."

not do  :

Livingstone [:18:29] [Mnyg]

wana-nga was encountered in other languages to the north but much nearer to Sydney than Minyung: The negative feature persisted but the imperative less strongly:

“[Whannunga neemoor ?]”:	wananga =	“[Leave it alone]”:		Tkld GDG Aust Voc  [126.2:7.1] [Gdg?]
"wonanga"	wananga =	"To give up"	give up, to  :	SofM 1899 07 21 [p.106.1 Armidale] [:107:39] [[BPI]]
"Wurnangah"	wananga =	"To give up"	give up, to  :	SofM 1897 02 27 [p.16.3: B-DGDI] [:17:25] [DGDI]

However, in Sydney, this same word wana-nga, was recorded by First Fleeter William Dawes, with the full negative imperative sense of ‘don’t’:

"Waunánga"

wananga =

"Don't ye"

not do:

Dawes (b) [b:22:11] [BB]

The form wana-wara was recorded by R.H. Mathews, in the Sydney region, in the Dharug language: wana-wara was a negative imperative with the sense of ‘stop’, ‘desist’:

“Wan´nawarra”

wana-wara =

“leave off, let me go”:

Mathews: 8006/3/5- Nbk 5 [115:2] [DG]

Dawes provided another example featuring wana, but did not give a translation:

"[Wauná wauná Bogîbóonî]"

wana =

"[Answer: [NOT TRANSLATED]]"

want not  :

Dawes (a) [a:7:5.11] [BB]

However, the words can be translated based on other examples in the body of Dawes’s work. ‘Wauná wauná bogibuni’ means: ‘[negative –negative] swim/bathe-lacking’. From this it appears that wana retains the negative imperative (or emphatic) connotation, suggesting an idiomatic translation of ‘No, I don’t want to bathe/swim’.

In three final Dawes examples, negativity (‘not’) is present, but the imperative sense (do!’) is missing. The meaning for wana appears to be, as in the last example, ‘not want’:

"Waúnadîémî"	wana-dyi-mi =	"Will Would you not?"	want not did thou:	Dawes (b) [b:22:20] [BB]
"Wånadyu-ínia"	wana-dyu-wi-nya =	"I don't desire your company"	want not did I thee:	Dawes (b) [b:24:12] [BB]
"[Mínyin mìwå´na?]"	mi wana =	"[Why won't you have it?]"	want not  :	Dawes (b) [b:17:9.1] [BB]

A final wana example comes from Wiradhuri in a complex verb provided by Gunther:

"Wannamindyarra"

wanamindyara =

"to neglect, to be careless; to care for no longer; to forgive."

neglect  forgive, to:

Günther WIRA (Fraser) [:104:29] [WIRA]

In the sense of ‘neglect’, the negative thread is maintained, but the imperative is missing.

The conclusion is that wa / wan can function as an imperative, or interjection, and that it might have negative overtones.

Friday 22 July 2011

The 'buga' puzzle

MURUWARI WORDS

Lynette Oates has produced a comprehensive introduction to Muruwari, a language group straddling the NSW-Qld border south of Cunnamulla and north of Bourke, Brewarrina and Lightning Ridge. The reference is:

Oates, Lynette Frances. 1988. The Muruwari language. Canberra: Dept. of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University.

It includes over 1100 sentences and verbs for which Oates has provided a grammatical analysis. Unsurprisingly, for such a large body of work, there are some puzzles and mysteries for the general enquirer looking into the language as presented by Oates. Here is one of them, with Oates’s analysis below:

kuntarl wuluwi-pu pinathini puka-ma-yu-na

dog-ABS   bark+PR-3sg   hear+PR   3sg-DAT-VBS-1sg-LCL

I hear a dog barking.

gundarl	wuluwibu	binaDini	bugamayuna
dog-ABS	bark+PR-3sg	hear+PR	3sg-DAT-VBS-1sg-LCL

This can be further broken down:

gundarl	wulu	wi	bu	bina	Dini	buga	ma	yu	na
dog-ABS	bark	+PR	-3sg	hear	+PR	3sg-DAT	-VBS	-1sg	-LCL

In the ‘Bayala databases’ bayaladatabases.blogspot.com this has been respelt as shown above, together with a revised translation:

gundarl	wulu	wi	bu	bina	Dini	buga	ma	yu	na
dog	woof	repeat	he	hear		BARK	make	did	there

The following explanation of the components is offered for the non-specialist.

gundarl          dog-ABS

This shows that ‘gundarl’ means ‘dog’. ‘ABS’ means ‘absolutive’, which in turn shows that the word is a noun and that it has no ending, or suffix. In this respect Australian indigenous languages are gratifyingly simple. If no suffix is needed, then it is omitted. Word order is not particularly important, but at the same time words do not occur in a capricious jumble. An ending would be needed on dog in the case of such a sentence as ‘dog man bite’, which might be equally presented as ‘bite man dog’ or  ‘man dog bite’, in order to show who is doing the biting. Such a suffix ends in ‘-u’ in Muruwari, 

usually -ngGu, or just -u, as in:

gundarlu        yidaA  ngaNa

dog      bite did me

The dog bit me.

But in the case of the sentence being lookied at here, ‘I hear a dog barking’, as no-one or thing other than the  dog could be doing the barking, the sentence is said to be ‘intransitive’, and no suffix is needed. This no-suffix condition is called ‘absolutive’. When there is a question as to who or what is doing whatever, a suffix is needed to show the 'do-er'. Such a suffix is referred to as ‘ergative’. In fact the ergative suffix is nothing more than a ‘flag’ to mark who is doing the action when there is a doubt.

wulu-wi-bu    bark+PR-3sg

‘wulu’ means ‘to bark as a dog’, but in the Bayala databases the word ‘woof’ is used to distinguish it from ‘bark on a tree’—for which ‘bark’ is retained.

‘-wi’: Oates has marked this as 'PR', for ‘present tense’, and so it is. But it is more. In Australian indigenous languages, suffixes after verb stems give additional information, and -wi, in Muruwari, indicates generally an idea about ‘reversal’ or ‘going back’ and the like; and also about ‘recurring’ or ‘repeating’. In this case of  the dog, you can think of -wi as signifying ‘woofing’ going on, as dogs are inclined to do.

‘-bu’ is a common pronoun ending, third-person singular, signifying ‘he’, ‘she’ or ‘it’. In Australian indigenous languages generally only the one pronoun form is used, unlike the case of the three found in English.

So ‘wulu-wi-bu’ means ‘woof-repeat-he’ when reduced to the basic ideas.

binaDini         hear+PR

In reality, in Muruwari, ‘bina’ means ‘ear’ and ‘Dini’ means ‘stand’. ‘ear-stand’. Imagine a dog with its ears pricked up. It is ‘hearing’ or ‘listening’. So that is what ‘binaDini’ means: ‘hear’ or ‘listen’; and it is in the present tense, as Oates has indicated.

Now comes the puzzle:

bugamayuna            3sg-DAT-VBS-1sg-LCL

Oates has given a complex explanation, and she might well be right. But if she is, the sentence does not make much sense. Her analysis:

3sg-DAT-VBS-1sg-LCL

might be translated as:

3sg-DAT	-VBS	-1sg	-LCL
him-for	verbed	I	place

This would mean the whole sentence would read:

dog      barking he       hear     him-for / verbed / I / place

which is supposed to mean: ‘I hear a dog barking.’ It just does not seem to fit. 

So what could this last component, ‘bugamayuna, really be? Well, here is a suggestion.

Oates provided over 100 examples of the use of pidgin, or basically English words, incorporated into Muruwari everyday speech, such as the following three:

"pulaayinkin"	BULAYINGIN =	"blanket (Eng.)"	BLANKET	Oates [:372:23] [MRWI]
"wanti-ma"	WANDI-ma =	"to want"	WANT  :	Oates [:132:24] [MRWI]
"parta"	BARDA =	"butter (Eng.)"	BUTTER  :	Oates [:374:5] [MRWI]

Given the sentence in which 'buga' occurs, perhaps the ‘buga’ in ‘buga-ma-yu-na’ might be ‘bark’: ‘buga’, ‘bark’—why not? No more far fetched than the other pidgin examples.

And if so, what of the three suffixes attached to this stem: ‘-ma-yu-na’?

• ‘-ma’ is a suffix fairly widespread in NSW languages meaning ‘make’ or ‘do’, sometimes attached to nouns to make them into verbs, as suggested by Oates’s ‘VBS’, for ‘verbaliser’.

• ‘-yu’ is indeed the first-person bound pronoun ‘I’ as indicated by Oates’s ‘-1sg’ — but perhaps not in this instance. What if a simple transcription error had been made, and the suffix were in fact ‘-ya’ instead? This suffix occurs innumerable times in the Murawari record compiled by Oates, and is referred to as ‘declarative’ when attached to a verb stem. It cannot be readily translated, but it might be considered as meaning ‘in fact’ or ‘as a matter of fact’: hence the term 'declarative'.

• ‘-na’, the final suffix, when attached to a verb, commonly has an idea of ‘place’. It can be translated as ‘here’ or ‘there’. This suffix is commonly written ‘-ni’ or ‘-na’; and when it is ‘-ni’ it might more possibly suggest ‘here in the present’, while ‘-na’ might correspondingly more likely denote ‘there in the past’.

Australian indigenous languages can be succinct and subtle in this use of verbal suffixes.

So, instead of Oates’s:

3sg-DAT	-VBS	-1sg	-LCL
him-for	verbed	I	place

for ‘buga-ma-yu-na’, the real interpretation might instead be:

buga	ma	ya	na
BARK	make	(in fact) did	there

which sounds more plausible. And the whole sentence would be as shown earlier:

gundarl	wulu	wi	bu	bina	Dini	buga	ma	yu	na
dog	woof	repeat	he	hear		BARK	make	did	there

or ‘The dog barked; (I did) hear; bark did (it) there’, which more or less corresponds to the original translation of ‘I hear a dog barking’.