Introduction to New England's Aboriginal languages

This paper provides an introduction to New England's Aboriginal languages. It is part of a bigger paper and should be treated as work in progress. 

To begin with, what was a language? In 1788 there were perhaps 250 Aboriginal language groups in Australia incorporating perhaps 700 dialects[1]. The precise distinction between language and dialect can be a difficult one. In general, speakers of different dialects within a language group are likely to be able to understand each other or at least recognise that they speak different varieties of the same language.

We also need to make a clear distinction between language and political or territorial boundaries[2]. The broad language groups covered substantial areas in geographic terms. There were a variety of shifting territorial and political boundaries within each language group. Just speaking the same or a related language did not make for everlasting friendship.

All Aboriginal languages share some common features. In grammatical terms, they have relatively free word order, allowing all possible ordering of subject, verb, object. Words show case, tense and mood by the addition of meaningful segments. Verbs and nouns have markers added to indicate who does what to whom, when and how. New words are formed by adding other meaningful segments. This can make for very long word, really sentences in themselves.

Most Aboriginal languages have only three vowels – i, a and u – although a few have four or more. As a New England example, the Bundjalung language group occupying territory stretching from the Clarence Valley into Southern Queensland used four vowels – i, a,u and e, each of which can be pronounced as a longer vowel[3]. There are also two semi-vowels in many languages, y and w

Words generally begin with a consonant, although Yaygirr (the language spoken around the mouth of the Clarence River) contains many words beginning with vowels such as aagal, sea[4].

Within this language diversity, all the New England language groups belong to what has come to be called Pama-Nyungan, the dominant language grouping over much of Australia. Coined by the linguist Kenneth Hale from the words pama (person in Cape York) and nyunga (one in south western Australia), Pama-Nyungun languages have commonalities in the structure of words and the way words to relate to each other.

All the almost 190 Pama-Nyungan languages suffix their verbs and nouns to show grammatical relations. They are grouped into perhaps twenty major language groups.

It is clear is that with so many languages and dialects, only a few languages had many thousands of speakers, with numbers tailing away to hundreds in other cases. In some case, contiguous related languages or dialects covered large areas like links in a chain. People easily understood their neighbours because they shared vocabulary and could at least understand structure and pronunciation. As the chain lengthened, language difficulties increased; people at opposite ends might barely understand each other.

As will be discussed in more detail later, New England illustrates this pattern in a very interesting way. The Anaiwan or Nganyaywana Aboriginal peoples who occupied the southern areas of the New England Tablelands appear to have been relatively homogeneous and limited in number, although even here there is debate about the number of dialects. By contrast, the Bundjalung language group occupying territory stretching from the Clarence Valley into Southern Queensland may have had as many as twenty separate dialects[5]. To the west, the Gamilaraay (Kamilaroi) whose territory stretched along the western slopes and plains into what is now Queensland may have had at least five major dialects, seven if the related languages of Yuwaalaraay and Yuwaaliyaay are included[6]. Bigambul, the language group on the slopes and plains in Queensland to the north was also reported to be close to Gamilaraay[7].

The map drawn from Austin, Williams and Wurm 1980 and cited by Peter Austin  shows one estimateddistribution of Gamilaraay dialects.  

Apart from any shared language features, communication among different languages was also made easier because many Aborigines were multi-lingual. Marriage partners were commonly exchanged with other groups, while groups mingled as well for social, ceremonial and trade occasions. This was to facilitate European expansion because many settlers made use of Aboriginal guides to bring them into new country

With so many languages and dialects as well as the very different sounds, it is not surprising that the expression of things such as group names into English should lead to widely varied spellings and to subsequent confusion about the exact distribution of peoples and language.

If we take the Dainggatti or Dhanggati language group spoken in the Macleay Valley and its headwaters, alternative spellings given by the Austlang data base include (among others) Djaingadi, Dang-getti, Danghetti, Danggadi, Dhang-atty, Thangatti, Thangatty, Dangati, Dangadi, Dunghutti, Thungatti, Tangetti and Tang-gette[8].

This was further complicated by attachment of names reflecting location or particular groups rather than language.

Drawing especially from the work of linguist Tamsin Donaldson, Michael O’Rourke’s sturdy of the Kamilaroi, the peoples occupying a vast sweep of territory from the Upper Hunter through the western slopes and plains into what is now Queensland, draws this out very clearly[9]. As an example, he points to the case of the Barradine area north of Coonabaraban which was assigned to both Burrigalu and Gamilaraay.

Burrigalu – burrie+galu: literally myall-tree + human plural – meant those who inhabit the myall country or myall dwellers. To O’Rourke’s mind, this was primarily a group or locality name. However, it could also mean the local variant or dialect of a larger language.

In contrast, the name Gamilaraay itself - gamil + array: literally no + having or having gamil for no – denoted a form of speech, the broader language spoken by the Kamilaroi as a whole. Even here, Gamilaraay could describe the language (that speech which has gamil for no) or, by implication, its speakers (those who use gamil for no).

The Muurrbay Aboriginal Language and Culture Co-operative points to the same issues with Bundjalung.[10] Suggesting that it was thought that the term ‘Bandjalung’ was originally used to describe the dialect spoken around Bangawalbin Creek and was only later used used as a general term for the whole language as well as as a term to refer to certain individual dialects, the Co-operative notes that each dialect has a specific name of its own. Dialects include: Wahlubal (also known as Western Bandjalang), Yugambeh, Birrihn, the Barryugil dialect, Bandjalang, Wudjebal, Wiyabal, Wuhyabal, Minyangbal, Gidhabal, Galibal and Ngarrahngbal. Many of these names point to some characteristic peculiar to that dialect. For example, Gidhabal means ‘those who say gidha (alright)’, while Wiyabal means ‘those who say wiya (you)’.

This way of classifying languages was not unique to the Australian Aborigines. All people have ways of drawing distinctions between us and them by distinguishing particular speech or territorial or political associations. As Tamsin Donaldson puts it, the Aborigines used several etymologically distinct namimg systems, with different naming systems calling forth different names[11].

The result is apparently crazy patchwork quilt of names whose exact meaning can be quite unclear. In some cases, we may never be able to resolve the problems. However, it is possible through the combination of geographical, historical and linguistic analysis to at least indicate some of the key features of language distribution within New England. 

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[1] The introductory overview material is drawn especial from John Mulvaney & Johan Kamminga, Prehistory of Australia, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, 1999 pp 69-75; and Peter K Austin, Article MS 1711 Countries and language – Australia, Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics ELL2, pp 2-9,. accessed on line 19 August 2009

[2] In using the term political boundaries I am not implying formal structures of the type associated with, for example, nation states. A closer analogy would be the type of relationships found in mediaeval Europe, in Scandinavia or indeed in Homer’s Greece. The 18^th century Kamilaroi war leader the Red Kangaroo provides an interesting case study. Having taken control from the previous elders, he had built the Gunnedah mob up into a strong force by absorbing other groups. Raids from the Bundarra mob on the Goonoo Goonoo and Manaella mobs led them to seek support from the Red Kangaroo. The Red Kangaroo argued that support should be provided because the power of the Bundarra mob posed a threat. A joint war party was formed that defeated the Bundarra group. The case shows how political alliances were formed and used in Aboriginal Australia. (Michael O’Rourke, “Sung for Generations”, published by the author, Canberra 2005, pp 306-311).

[3] Muurrbay Aboriginal Language and Culture Co-operative, Bundjalung, http://www.muurrbay.org.au/bundjalung.html, accessed on line 19 August 2009.

[4] Muurrbay Aboriginal Language and Culture Co-operative, Yaygirr, http://www.muurrbay.org.au/yaygirr.html, accessed on line 19 August 2009.

[5] Muurrbay Aboriginal Language and Culture Co-operative, Bundjalung, http://www.muurrbay.org.au/bundjalung.html, accessed on line 19 August 2009.

[6] The material on the Gamillaraay is drawn from Peter K Austin, The Gamilaraay (Kamilaroi) Language, northern New South Wales — A Brief History of Research, SOAS, University of London, 2006, accessed on-line 17 December 2008.

[7] Flick Isabel & Heather Goodall, Isabel Flick: the many lives of an extraordinary woman, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, 2004, p3.

[8] Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Australian Indigenous Languages Data Base (Austlang), http://austlang.aiatsis.gov.au/main.php, accessed on line 6 May 2010.

[9] Michael O’Rourke, The Kamilaroi Lands: North-central New South Wales in the early 19^th century, Michael O’Rourke, Griffith 1997 especially pp 26-32.

[10] Muurrbay Aboriginal Language and Culture Co-operative, Bundjalung, http://www.muurrbay.org.au/bundjalung.html, accessed on line 19 August 2009

[11] O’Rourke, 1977, p 28

New England, generational change and the 1970s

This morning in a post on my personal blog I looked at Generational Change and the 1970s. In doing so, I deliberately chose Northern examples to continue fleshing out my thinking. Some things I have said before, but it all deepens my understanding.

What I didn't deal with are the detail of the social changes across New England after the Second World War. I know some of the changes because I was there. Others such as the story of Wytaliba I know little or nothing about.

Even where I do know something, my knowledge can be very patchy. For example, I don't know the details of the rise of Bellingen as a counter culture centre, I know very little of the detail of the rise of Byron Bay.

While I get very depressed at a personal level about New England history over the last forty years, one of the positives has been an increase in the diversity of New England life, the establishment of different local and regional traditions.

I would love to write more on some of this stuff not just to understand for myself, but to show people how they fit in. 

Soldier settlement, Bool and the Whites

Really just a follow up on a few topics.

My last post was on New England soldier settlers. Gordon Smith's  Old news from Armidale and New England carried a story from the Sydney Morning Herald (30 April 1920) on General Birdwood's visit to the Kentucky Soldier Settlement Scheme. Apart from providing a picture of development at that time, I noted that the General chatted for a few minutes with Sergeant Freame on old Gallipoli days. Sergeant Freame was one of the General’s scouts on the peninsula, and was the first Australian to receive the D.C.M.

University of New England archivist Bill Oates has another story on Archives Outside. From Uralla 1916 to Europe 2010 – Anzac Commemorations & New England points and counterpoints between present and past. Back in November 2009, Bill had a story, New England remembers through the archives: World War I, dealing especially with the Whites and the Booloominbah Convalescent Home.

The photo shows returned servicemen playing tennis on the top Bool courts. The picture will be familiar to generations of those with contacts with UNE.

Mind you, in Armidale a few weeks ago I noticed that they has become overgrown. I wonder why? Has the university forgotten the history of those courts?

There were many things in these stories of Bill's that touched a chord.

The First World War had a traumatic impact on New England. Just so many people were lost.

The ex-servicemen who returned and who wanted a new life played a major role in subsequent political events.

Then when you look at the role of the White family, you find another of the threads in New England's history.

I have only partially captured all this in the writing that I have done to this point. One of the really fun things is the way in which the past slowly emerges from the mists.

I have argued, and I stand by this, that fashions in the writing of Australian history blind people to the history of areas such as New England. We simply fall below the radar. It's nice to see people like Bill bringing it alive.     

New England soldier settlers

On Archives Outside,  Selena Williams' post Hidden Stories: Acknowledging World War One Nurses as Soldier Settlers focused on something that I knew nothing about, female soldier settlers.

Selena is now working as a research assistant for A Land fit for Heroes, a new web site recording the experiences of NSW soldier settlers. I think that I mentioned the site when it first came up, but its content then was very low. I revisited, and spent some time clicking through the case studies.

I am especially interested in New England soldier settlement. Of course, this was a sub-set of a broader program, but I am interested in local impacts.

Kentucky south of Armidale is the soldier settlement area that I know best at a personal level because my Aunt and Uncle (Ron and Kath Vickers) had a property there.

I am not sure that it was ever a soldier settlement block, but certainly it was in the soldier settlement area.

I looked around for a photo to illustrate this post. This one is from cousin Jamie's collection. Taken in 1960, it shows a very young Jamie (the grass seems huge) looking up towards the woolshed. Planted as wind breaks, the pine trees on the top left were typical of Kentucky. Sadly, the trees had a limited life, so many of them have died and have not been replanted, changing the visual landscape that I knew.

I have written several posts on Kentucky. 

One, New England Story - The life and death of the mysterious Harry Freame, records the story of a remarkable man who after an adventurous early life came to Kentucky Estate as government storekeeper following its subdivision as a soldier settlement scheme, then acquiring a block and establishing an orchard. This was not the end of the story, for he was to become one of, if not the first, Australian spies.

For those who are interested, there is a display about the life of past Kentuckians in the Kentucky Hall including Freame. Visitors can get the key from the Kentucky store.

Returning to Selena's work, for someone like me who is interested in the texture of New England life, her work and the A Land fit for Heroes web site are very important. Even now, just clicking through the still limited case studies on the site I can start to see patterns and questions.     

Hunter Valley Research Foundation

Back in March in Newcastle University's regional contribution I asked:

What I really want to do is to be able to show the Newcastle University's specific contribution to its region. I have ideas and hypotheses, but I need to be able to test and extend these. Any ideas? 

I asked this because I am trying to trace the contribution made by individual universities to New England's cultural, social and economic development. Now I know most about UNE, not just because of my personal connections, but because it had a very particular mission and left a larger footprint. 

My feeling is that the University of Newcastle has played a considerable role. Here I know that the Hunter Valley Research Foundation was one spin-off.

Professor Cyril Renwick who played such an important role in its foundation was a household name at our place. It wasn't just his school text that I used when I picked up economics. It was also his role in founding what is now the Foundation.

The HVRF web site describes its foundation in this way:

The Hunter Valley Research Foundation (HVRF) grew out of the devastation of the disastrous 1955 floods which left a trail of destruction and despair throughout the Hunter Valley. After recovery had commenced, a community meeting of over 600 residents took place in Maitland to discuss future action. There was a widespread demand that an effort be made to mitigate the flooding and safeguard the Valley's economy. A decision was taken to set up an organisation to acquire knowledge of the total environment through research and subsequently the HVRF was established.

In writing my history of the broader New England, I really need to deal with this because I think that it is a remarkable story. To my knowledge, this was a unique institution. Further, I would like to weave Professor Renwick's work into my narrative.

I have done some web checking, but again, does anybody have knowledge of published material that might help me?  

Dating old photos by fashion

My last post, Archives Outside, dealt with the dating of photographs and attracted a very nice comment from  Fiona Sullivan.

Looking at some of the comments on this and other posts attempting to identify date and location of photos, I stand somewhat in awe of the detailed knowledge of the commentators!

One of the reference sites referred to, Fashion Era, has a quite remarkable section -The Costume Detective: How to Date Old Photographs by the Costume: A Fashion-era Special, is really worth a browse.

Now the focus in the discussion is on photo dating. However, to date photos people have to understand what happened and when. This raises a far broader issue and one that excites me as a historian. You see, most of these techniques are actually a study in social and cultural history.

Take fashion. Yes, you can see how fashions changed. But those changes tell us not just about changing trends and social structures, but also something of the detail of domestic life. For example, how long did it take to get dressed? How much time was taken just to keep clothes clean and somewhat tidy?

One of the things that puzzled me as child with old photos lay in the fact that people might be dressed up, coats and ties for example, but everything was crumpled. This simply goes to the question of ironing.

In Australia, we take pressed clothes as a given. We also take electric irons as a given. They are just part of the fabric of current life. Yet electricity itself is very new.

The mining town of Hillgrove near Armidale may have had electric power in 1895, but it would be many years yet before Armidale gained electricity. No power, and you have to iron using irons heated on stove tops. I remember those old irons, for I have actually seen them used. They were bloody heavy and took time to heat. Then they had to be re-heated.

All this took time, quite a lot of time. It was also heavier work. Mind you, you also had to have a stove. For a fair bit of at least the first part of the nineteenth century, the majority of Australians cooked over open fires.

All this explains the rumpled appearance in photos. However, it also explains something else. I suspect that the later rise of women's liberation would not have been possible, or at least not in its advanced form, without the invention of all the devices that now make house work so much easier.   

Archives Outside

I am really enjoying the NSW State Records Office Archives Outside blog. Chatting to Bill Oates, the University of New England archivist, on my recent visit to Armidale, Bill said that the folks responsible for the blog were thrilled at the response they were getting. And so they should be. It's well deserved.

One of their latest posts, What are your tips for dating photographs?, dealt with ways of dating photos.

I use old photos quite a bit to tell stories and to attract comments. See, for example, North Coast Memories - SS Fitzroy, a nostalgia piece where I show that the State Library date attached to the photo (c1925) could not be correct since the ship sank in 1921.

It's not just a question of dating, but also of setting a context. What does the photo tell us?  

Look at the photo in New England Airways - Postscript, one of a series in the Hood collection. It's not just that people are all dressed up, it's also that the photo is part of a remarkable story in Australian aviation, the New England Airways' story.

One of the difficulties that I face is knowing when to to use photos, especially when they are tied up by apparently fiendish copyright conditions. In fact, most of the older photos are out of copyright. Yet it's still an issue and especially in NSW.

Here Peter Firminger pointed me to another State Records initiative, their participation in a Flickr project to make material more broadly available. See here for a search on New England.

One of the things that I so love about the internet is that we are just getting to the point that some of the more specialist areas that I am interested in, New England history is an example, are just starting to reach critical mass. At this point, they become genuinely useful.

Once again, congratulations to Archives Outside. 

Anne Curthoy's Freedom Ride

Now that I have decided to take my history of New England to the end of the twentieth century, one book that I have still have to read is Anne Curthoy's Freedom Ride: a freedom rider remembers.

In some ways, the decision by a group of Sydney University students in 1964 to get on a bus and go visiting some New England towns to protest against prejudice and racial discrimination against Aboriginal people has achieved almost mythic status. The original idea came not from any local knowledge, but was a response to the US freedom rides, so the students themselves were to face a major shock.

Generally, the ride has been interpreted in the context of changing national attitudes towards Australia's Aboriginal people. I am interested in the way it fits into New England history, a very different perspective. How did people respond to these outsiders? What was the local impact? How did it fit into changes that were already taking place?

I don't have an answer at this point. I have come across a number of passing references, but they don't provide any pattern. It may be that there wasn't a pattern, that outside any broader issues and responses, local impacts varied greatly.

I do need to know these things. However, I am also struggling with a broader question.

Writing as an historian, I have to deal with things as I see them. The more I dig back into Aboriginal history, the greater the conflict I find between my role as an historian and attitudes towards Aboriginal history and culture.

At the moment I am still researching New England's Aboriginal languages. I struggle with the idea expressed by some that I must not do so unless I get approval from particular groups of Elders and indeed at the extreme allow them to clear my writing.

I am dealing with the historical record. The reason why so much of the New England Aboriginal languages have survived is because of non-Aboriginal recorders. The very if still limited success of the Aboriginal language revival movement is due to the fact that the Aborigines involved had access not just to their own knowledge but to non-Aboriginal research.

The tragedy for the Language revival movement lies in the fact that just when it was still possible to record in the seventies, non-Aboriginal interest seems to have declined.

It seems to me, I stand to be corrected, that some current attitudes effectively place Aboriginal Studies back in the ghetto that Aboriginal people as a whole are still trying to break out form.     

A few references

One of the wonderfully random things about the web is the way in which searches throw up references that sometimes cannot be found again with the same search! For that reason, I have been saving links on a temporary basis for later recording here. I can then remove the link.

Rodney Harrison's "Shared Landscapes" presents new ways of understanding historic heritage in settler societies through cross-disciplinary case studies that examine the heritage of the pastoral industry in two national parks, one in New England The preview on Google Books looks interesting, so I will see what I can learn and then decide to buy or borrow the book.

The Mudgee Historical Society has, with the author's permission, reproduced some of Michael O'Rourke's analysis of the initial Aboriginal European contact period. The introduction reads:

THE COLONIAL DISCOVERY AND OCCUPATION OF
EAST-CENTRAL NEW SOUTH WALES,
1817-26
OXLEY, HOWE, LAWSON AND CUNNINGHAM
MUDGEE, MERRIWA, AND MUSWELLBROOK
Incorporating an extended discussion of the armed conflict between Aborigines, settlers and police in the Hunter Valley.

I think that's pretty good, myself, for Michael's research is detailed.

I found an interesting paper by Ian Walters on the Toorbul Point Aboriginal fish trap in South east Queensland that I can certainly use.

The Hills Look Down to the Sea: A Thematic History of the Ballina Shire provides an interesting introduction to the history of Ballina. One of the things that I have to achieve in writing a history of the broader New England is to take and meld all the local histories. This is actually no small task! 

Up-dates on-line resources

Today is an historical research catch up day. As part of this I have updated an earlier post, New England's History - Guide to on-line resources, that I began some time ago but have not returned too since.

I still have some distance to go, but now that I have twenty sources up I think that it has finally become a useful page. Please tell me of any sources that you know that I might have missed.