Ngarluma

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The Ngarluma are an Indigenous Australian people of the western Pilbara area of northwest Australia. They are coastal dwellers of the area around Roebourne and Karratha. Not including Millstream.

Language[]

The Ngarluma language belongs to the Ngayarda branch of the Pama-Nyungan family. It is a highly inflected suffixing language, with, unusually, a Nominative-Accusative case-marking system, with verbs inflected for Tense, Aspect and Mood.[1][2] The Ngarluma on contact with whites and distant tribes appeared to have reserved their grammatically complex language for conversations among themselves while adopting a simplified version when interacting with strangers.[1]

There are an estimated 20 full speakers most of grandparent age, and a shift appears to be underway towards to the adoption of Yindjibarndi[3]

History[]

It would appear that the Ngarluma adapted quickly to the developing pearling industry along the northwest coast, perhaps travelling down to get work at Cossack 300 miles south. This hypothesis is based on the fact that the vocabulary list provided to a priest in 1875 by two Dalmatian Italian shipwreck survivors, Michele Bacich and Giovanni Iurich, after they returned to Italy, appears to be a creole with a strong but simplified component of Ngarluma. It is thought that they were extended hospitality for 3 months by the Yinikutira people who had picked up the creole from indentured Ngarluma labourers in the pearling industry.[1]

Kinship system[]

The Ngarluma people have a four group skin system.

Banaga
 Balyirri
Burungu
 Garimarra

Some words[]

  • t(h)artaruga = (sea turtle). This might be a loanword predating the Western discovery of the continent of Australia.

In a number of Pilbara languages such as Ngarluma, Ngarla, Kariyarra Yinjibarndi and Nyamal, the turle is called tartaruga/thartaruga. This happens to be identical to the Portuguese word for that creature, and there is a grounded suspicion that the common term must reflect some otherwise unattested interception of Portuguese sailors prior to the advent of the Dutch on the northwestern coast. The data, and theorization of some such contact, was gathered and advanced by Carl Georg von Brandenstein, who hypothesized that there must have been a secret Portuguese colony established in the area around the 1520s, which lasted for 60 years. The need for secrecy stemmed, in this hypothesis, from the consequences of the Treaty of Tordesillas which divided the New World into Spanish and Portuguese imperial zones. Von Brandenstein thought that, given the quarrels between the two nations over the boundaries and extension of these lines of demarcation, the Portuguese might have kept their discovery of Australia and colonization of the coastal area of the Pilbara, secret until the Portuguese succession crisis of 1580 led to the regency of the Spanish king Philip 11, after which the colony ended. This etymology has strong claims, unlike the rest of the hypothesis.[4]

Notes[]

Citations[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c Meakins 2014, p. 369.
  2. ^ McConvell & Simpson 2012, p. 162.
  3. ^ Dixon & Deek 2010, p. 122.
  4. ^ Mühlhäusler & McGregor 1996, pp. 101–102.

Sources[]

  • "AIATSIS map of Indigenous Australia". AIATSIS.
  • Brandenstein, Carl Georg; Churnside, Bob (1970). Narratives from the North-west of Western Australia in the Ngarluma and Jindjiparndi Languages: Narratives 1-36. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.
  • Dixon, Sally; Deek, Eleonora (2010). "Language centre as language revitalization strategy: a case study from the Pilbara". In Hobson, John; Lowe, Kevin; Poetsach, Susan; Walsh, Michael (eds.). Re-awakening Languages: Theory and Practice in the Revitalisation of Australia's Indigenous Languages. Sydney University Press. pp. 119–139. ISBN 978-1-920-89955-4.
  • Edmunds, Mary (2013). A Good Life: Human Rights and Encounters with Modernity. Australian National University. ISBN 978-1-922-14467-6.
  • McConvell, Patrick; Simpson, Jane (2012). "Fictive Motion Down Under: The Locative-Allative Case Alternative in Some Australian Indigenous Languages". In Santos, Diana; Lindén, Krister; Ng'ang'a, Wanjiku (eds.). Shall We Play the Festschrift Game?: Essays on the Occasion of Lauri Carlson's 60th Birthday. Springer. pp. 159–179. ISBN 978-1-920-89955-4.
  • Meakins, Felicity (2014). "Language contact varieties". In Koch, Harold; Nordlinger, Rachel (eds.). The Languages and Linguistics of Australia: A Comprehensive Guide. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 365–415. ISBN 978-3-110-27977-1.
  • Mühlhäusler, Peter; McGregor, William (1996). "Post-contact languages of Western Australia". In Wurm, Stephen A.; Mühlhäusler, Peter; Tryon, Darrell T. (eds.). Atlas of Languages of Intercultural Communication in the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas. Volume 1. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 101–121. ISBN 978-3-110-81972-4. |volume= has extra text (help)
  • Ngarluma Dictionary: English-Ngarluma Wordlist and Topical Wordlists (PDF). Wanga Maya Pilbara Aboriginal Language Centre. 2008. ISBN 978-1-921312-73-1.
  • "Tindale Tribal Boundaries" (PDF). Department of Aboriginal Affairs, Western Australia. September 2016.
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