Darkinjung language
{{short description|Extinct Australian Aboriginal language}}
{{Use Australian English|date=August 2018}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2018}}
{{Infobox language
| name = Darkinjung
| altname = Hawkesbury–MacDonald River
| region = New South Wales
| ethnicity = Darkinjung, Darkinung
| revived = A small number of second-language users in revival program
| familycolor = Australian
| fam1 = Pama–Nyungan
| fam2 = Yuin–Kuric
| fam3 = Yora
| dia1 = Darrkinyung
| dia2 = Hawkesbury River–Broken Bay?
| iso3 = xda
| aiatsis = S65
| glotto = hawk1239
| glottorefname = Hawkesbury
| era = attested 1903
| states = Australia
| map = Dharag-Neighbors1.png
| mapcaption = Traditional lands of Aboriginal Australian tribes around Sydney; Darkinjung in {{legend inline|#b97a57|brown}}
}}
Darkinjung (Darrkinyung; many other spellings; see below) is an Australian Aboriginal language, the traditional language of the Darkinjung people. While no audio recordings of the language survive, several researchers have compiled wordlists and grammatical descriptions. It has been classified as a language no longer fully spokenNational Indigenous Languages Survey Report 2005 and it can be classified as needing a language renewalAustralian Indigenous Languages Framework (Senior Secondary Assessment Board of South Australia, 1996) program. It was spoken adjacent to Dharuk, Wiradhuri, Gamilaraay, and Awabakal. The Darkinjung tribe occupied a small part of southeastern Australia inside what is now the New South Wales area. They likely inhabited a considerable tract of land within Hunter, Northumberland, and Cook counties.{{Cite journal|last=Mathews|first=R. H.|date=1903-01-01|title=Languages of the Kamilaroi and Other Aboriginal Tribes of New South Wales|jstor=2842812|journal=The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland|volume=33|pages=259–283|doi=10.2307/2842812|url=https://zenodo.org/record/1449596}}
Alternate names
Revitalisation effort
Since 2003 there has been a movement from the Darkinyung language group to revitalise the language. They started working with the original field reports of Robert H. Mathews and W. J. Enright. Where there were gaps in the sparsely populated wordlists, words were taken from lexically similar nearby languages. This led to the publication of the work Darkinyung grammar and dictionary: revitalising a language from historical sources.{{cite book|title=Darkinyung grammar and dictionary: revitalising a language from historical sources|last=Jones|first=Caroline|publisher=Muurrbay Aboriginal Language and Culture Co-operative|year=2008|isbn=978-0-9775351-9-4|location=Nambucca Heads, Australia}} This may be ordered from the publisher, Muurrbay Aboriginal Language and Culture Co-operative.{{cite web | title=Publications | website=Muurrbay Aboriginal Language and Culture Co-operative | url=https://muurrbay.org.au/publications-and-resources/publications/ | access-date=11 August 2023}}
Phonology
Much of our understanding of Darkinjung phonology comes from papers published by R.H. Mathews in 1903. When analysing these sources, we may generalise that there were around 15 consonant phonemes, and approximately 3 vowels.
= Consonants =
| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
! |
| Plosive
|{{IPAlink|b}} |{{IPAlink|d̪}} |{{IPAlink|d}} |{{IPAlink|ɟ}} |{{IPAlink|g}} |
|---|
| Nasal
|{{IPAlink|m}} |{{IPAlink|n̪}} |{{IPAlink|n}} |{{IPAlink|ɲ}} |{{IPAlink|ŋ}} |
| Trill
| | |{{IPAlink|r}} | | |
| Approximant
|{{IPAlink|w}} | |{{IPAlink|ɹ}} |{{IPAlink|j}} | |
| Lateral
| | |{{IPAlink|l}} | | |
In Darkinjung, like many Australian languages, b, d, and g are interchangeable with p, t, and k and will not change the meaning of the word. The fact that this table shows b, d, and g is arbitrary.
= Vowels =
Morphology
= "Tags" =
Darkinjung makes use of what Mathews refers to as "tags," or suffixes to denote relationships between objects in sentences.
Number tags -bula "two" and -biyn "several"
{{interlinear|indent=2
|miri-bula
|dog-two
|'a couple of dogs'}}
Possessor Tag: -gayi
{{interlinear|indent=2
|guri- gayi bargan
|man POSS boomerang
|'a man's boomerang'}}
Locative "at, on, in" tags: -a/ -da/ -dja/ -ga/ -wa
The locative tags -ga and -wa appear to be found after stems ending in vowels.
{{interlinear|indent=2
|gawin-da nhayi
|bank-LOC that.over.there
|'on the other side'}}
Words with locational information seem to coincide with nouns that also carry a locative tag:
{{interlinear|indent=2
|wallang-gayn-dja gundji-ga gara-dhi
|behind-?-LOC hut-LOC hide-PRES
|'around the house, hidden'}}
Ergative case tags: -a/ -da/ -ga/ -ya. Words that end in the consonant ŋ receive that tag /-ga/
{{interlinear|indent=2
|nyugang-ga wagar mana-yi
|woman-ERG perch get-PAST
|'the woman caught a perch'}}
References
{{Reflist}}
{{refbegin}}
- {{cite journal|date=Jul–Dec 1903|title=Languages of the Kamilaroi and Other Aboriginal Tribes of New South Wales|journal=The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland|publisher=Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland|volume=33|pages=259–283|doi=10.2307/2842812|jstor=2842812|author=R. H. Mathews|url=https://zenodo.org/record/1449596|author-link=R. H. Mathews}}
{{refend}}
External links
- [http://aiatsis.gov.au/sites/default/files/docs/collections/language_bibs/darkinung_darkinjung_darkinoong.pdf Bibliography of Darkinjung people and language resources] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150528094614/http://aiatsis.gov.au/sites/default/files/docs/collections/language_bibs/darkinung_darkinjung_darkinoong.pdf |date=28 May 2015 }}, at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
{{Aboriginal peoples in New South Wales}}
{{Pama–Nyungan languages|East}}