Guugu Yimithirr language

The word {{Transliteration|kky|guugu}} means 'speech, language', while {{Transliteration|kky|yimithirr}} (or {{Transliteration|kky|yumuthirr}}) means {{Transliteration|kky|yimi}} -having, {{Transliteration|kky|yimi}} being the word for 'this'. The use of the word {{Transliteration|kky|yi(mi)}}, rather than some other word for "this", was seen as a distinctive feature of Guugu Yimithirr. The element {{Transliteration|kky|guugu}} and the practice of naming based on some distinctive word is found in many other languages.

The name has many spelling variants, including Gogo-Yimidjir, Gugu-Yimidhirr, Gugu Yimithirr, Guugu Yimidhirr, Guguyimidjir (used by Ethnologue), Gugu Yimijir, Kukuyimidir, Koko Imudji, Koko Yimidir, Kuku Jimidir, Kuku Yimithirr, and Kuku Yimidhirr.

The original territory of the Guugu Yimithirr tribe extended northwards to the mouth of the Jeannie River, where it was bordered by speakers of Guugu Nyiguudji; southwards to the Annan River, where it was bordered by speakers of Guugu Yalandji; to the west, it was bordered by speakers of a language called Guugu Warra (literally 'bad talk') or Lama-Lama. The modern town of Cooktown is located within Guugu Yimithirr territory.

As of the early 21st century, however, most Guugu Yimithirr speakers live at the mission at Hopevale.

Guugu Yimithirr originally consisted of several dialects, although even the names of most have now been forgotten. Today, two main dialects are distinguished: the coastal dialect, called {{Lang|kky|dhalundhirr}} 'with the sea', and the inland dialect, called {{Lang|kky|waguurrga}} 'of the outside'.{{Cite web |title=Y167: Dhalundhirr |url=https://collection.aiatsis.gov.au/austlang/language/Y167 |access-date=2022-06-10 |website=Australian Indigenous Languages Database |date=26 July 2019 |publisher=Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies}}{{Cite web |title=Y168: Waguurrga |url=https://collection.aiatsis.gov.au/austlang/language/Y168 |access-date=2022-06-10 |website=Australian Indigenous Languages Database |date=26 July 2019 |publisher=Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies}} Missionaries used the coastal dialect to translate hymns and Bible stories, so some of its words now have religious associations that the inland equivalents lack. There was once also a Ngegudi or Gugu Nyiguudyi dialect, which is unattested.{{Cite web |title=Y79: Guugu-Nyiguudyi |url=https://collection.aiatsis.gov.au/austlang/language/Y79 |access-date=2022-06-10 |website=Australian Indigenous Languages Database |date=26 July 2019 |publisher=Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies}}

Image:Captainjamescookportrait.jpg

In 1770, Guugu Yimithirr became the first Australian Aboriginal language to be written down when Lieutenant (later Captain) James Cook and his crew recorded words while their ship, the HM Bark Endeavour, was being repaired after having run aground on a shoal of the Great Barrier Reef. Joseph Banks described the language as "totally different from that of the Islanders; it sounded more like English in its degree of harshness though it could not be {{not a typo|called}} harsh neither {{sic}}".

Among the words recorded were {{Not a typo|{{lang|kky|kangooroo}}}} or {{Not a typo|{{lang|kky|kanguru}}}} (IPA: {{IPA|/ɡaŋuru/}}), meaning a large black or grey kangaroo, which would become the general English term for all kangaroos, and {{Lang|kky|dhigul}} (transcribed by Banks as Je-Quoll), the name of the quoll.

Sydney Parkinson, who accompanied Cook, gave a useful word list in his posthumously published journal, A Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas.{{cite web|url=http://southseas.nla.gov.au/journals/parkinson/191.html|title=Parkinson's Journal, New Holland, page 191|publisher=Southseas.nla.gov.au|access-date=2015-08-15}}

Short {{IPA|/u/}} may be realised as unrounded {{IPAblink|ɯ}}, and unstressed {{IPA|/a/}} may be reduced to {{IPAblink|ə}}.

The stops are usually voiceless and unaspirated initially and after short vowels, and voiced after consonants and long vowels.

The retroflexes {{IPA|[ɖ ɳ]}} may not be single phonemes, but clusters of {{IPA|/ɻd ɻn/}}. However, there is at least one word which, for older speakers, is pronounced with a word-initial retroflex: run, which is {{IPA|[ɖudaː]}} or {{IPA|[ɖuɖaː]}}.

The rhotic {{IPA|/r/}} is normally a flap {{IPAblink|ɾ}}, but may be a trill in emphatic speech.

All words, with the exception of a couple of interjections, begin with one consonant. The consonant can be a stop, nasal, or semivowel (that is, {{IPA|/l r ɻ/}} do not occur initially).

Words can end in either a vowel or a consonant. The allowed word-final consonants are {{IPA|/l r ɻ j n n̪/}}.

Within words, any consonant can occur, as well as clusters of up to three consonants, which cannot occur initially or finally.

Like many Australian languages, Guugu Yimithirr pronouns have accusative morphology while nouns have ergative morphology. That is, the subject of an intransitive verb has the same form as the subject of a transitive verb if the subject is a pronoun, but the same form as the object of a transitive verb otherwise.

Regardless of whether nouns or pronouns are used, the usual sentence order is subject–object–verb, although other word orders are possible.

The language is notable for its use of pure geographic directions (north, south, east, west) rather than egocentric directions (left, right, forward, backward),{{cite news |last=Deutscher |first=Guy |title=Does Your Language Shape How You Think? |newspaper=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/magazine/29language-t.html |date=26 August 2010}} though such "purity" is disputed.{{cite journal|last=Haviland|first=John B.|title=Guugu Yimithirr Cardinal Directions|journal=Ethos|date=March 1998|volume=26|issue=1|pages=25–47|url=https://pages.ucsd.edu/~jhaviland/Publications/ETHOSw.Diags.pdf|doi=10.1525/eth.1998.26.1.25}} Still, it has given its speakers a remarkable sense of direction.{{Citation needed|date=September 2021}}

{{as of|June 2020}}, only about half of the 1,400 Guugu Yimithirr people speak the language, with mostly only grandparents being fluent speakers. Hope Vale elders are helping to create video tutorials on teaching Guugu Yimithirr, which are being uploaded to YouTube, while the local school, Hope Vale Cape York Aboriginal Australian Academy, has a language program in its curriculum. With the schools closed and learning being done in the home, using the online videos, during the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia, adults as well as younger siblings have been learning the language alongside the schoolchildren.

Some words from the Guugu Yimithirr language, as spelt and written by Guugu Yimithirr authors include:{{SLQ-CC-BY |url=https://maps.slq.qld.gov.au/iyil/view/69?embed=true |title=Guugu Yimithirr |publisher=State Library of Queensland|website=Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages map |url-status=live |accessdate=10 June 2022}}

• Balingga: echidna
• Birri: river
• Bubu: land
• Buurraay: water
• Gangurru: kangaroo
• Gulaan: possum
• Guuju: fish
• Jijirr: bird
• Munhu: grass
• Nanggurr: home/camp
• Ngalan: sun
• Thaarba: snake
• Wantharra nyundu? How are you?

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite book |last=Banks |first=Joseph |author-link=Joseph Banks |year=1962 |editor=J. C. Beaglehole |editor-link=John Cawte Beaglehole |title=The Endeavour journal of Joseph Banks, 1768-1771}}
• {{cite journal |last=Breen |first=Gavan |author-link=Gavan Breen |year=1970 |title=A re-examination of Cook's Gogo-Yimidjir word list |journal=Oceania |volume=41 |issue=1 |pages=28–38|doi=10.1002/j.1834-4461.1970.tb01113.x }}
• {{cite book |last=Cook |first=James |author-link=James Cook |year=1955 |title=The Journals of Captain James Cook |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=0-665-35756-7}}
• {{cite book |last=Dixon |first=R. M. W. |author-link=R. M. W. Dixon |year=2002 |title=Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |url=http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0-521-47378-0 |isbn=0-521-47378-0}}
• {{cite journal |last=Haviland |first=John B. |author-link=John B. Haviland |year=1974 |title=A last look at Cook's Guugu-Yimidhirr wordlist |journal=Oceania |volume=44 |issue=3 |pages=216–232|doi=10.1002/j.1834-4461.1974.tb01803.x }}
• {{cite book|last=Haviland |first=John B. |author-link=John B. Haviland |year=1979 |chapter=Guugu Yimidhirr Sketch Grammar |editor=R. M. W. Dixon and B. Blake |title=Handbook of Australian Languages Vol I |pages=26–180}}
• {{cite journal |last=Haviland |first=John B. |author-link=John B. Haviland |year=1985 |title=The life history of a speech community: Guugu Yimidhirr at Hopevale |journal=Aboriginal History |volume=8 |pages=170–204 |issue=7}}
• {{cite journal |author=Richard Phillips |author2=Sidney H. Ray |year=1898 |title=Vocabulary of Australian Aborigines in the neighbourhood of Cooktown, North Queensland |journal=The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland |volume=27 |pages=144–147 |doi=10.2307/2842861 |jstor=2842861 |publisher=Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland|author2-link=Sidney H. Ray |url=https://zenodo.org/record/1449602 }}
• {{cite book |last=Roth |first=Walter E. |author-link=Walter E. Roth |year=1901 |title=The structure of the Koko-Yimidir language |location=Brisbane |publisher=Government Printer}}
• {{cite book |last=Schwarz |first=G. H. |author-link=George Heinrich Schwarz |year=1946 |title=Order of service and hymns |location=Brisbane |publisher=Watson, Ferguson}}
• {{cite book |last=de Zwaan |first=Jan Daniel |year=1969 |title=A preliminary analysis of Gogo-Yimidjir |location=Canberra |publisher=Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies}}
• {{cite journal |last=de Zwaan |first=Jan Daniel |year=1969 |title=Two studies in Gogo-Yimidjir |journal=Oceania |volume=39 |issue=3 |pages=198–217|doi=10.1002/j.1834-4461.1969.tb01006.x }}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20060828091648/https://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/correspondence/bulletins/2005/february/sample/2005indvicsample.pdf Guugu Yimithirr exercises (page 2)].
• [https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/magazine/29language-t.html Does Your Language Shape How You Think? (NYT)]
• [http://aiatsis.gov.au/sites/default/files/docs/collections/language_bibs/guugu_yimidhirr_gugu_yimithirr_kuku_yimidhirr.pdf Bibliography of Guugu Yimidhirr people and language resources] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160417114145/http://aiatsis.gov.au/sites/default/files/docs/collections/language_bibs/guugu_yimidhirr_gugu_yimithirr_kuku_yimidhirr.pdf |date=17 April 2016 }}, at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
• [https://onesearch.slq.qld.gov.au/permalink/61SLQ_INST/dls06p/alma99183695520202061 Guugu Yimidhirr (Cooktown) community language journey digital story], State Library of Queensland. Part of [https://onesearch.slq.qld.gov.au/permalink/61SLQ_INST/bumb4u/alma99183673120702061 Spoken: Celebrating Queensland Languages Digital Stories Collection]
• [https://onesearch.slq.qld.gov.au/permalink/61SLQ_INST/bumb4u/alma99183850919802061 Guugu Yimidhirr (Hope Vale) community language journey digital story], State Library of Queensland. Part of Spoken: Celebrating Queensland Languages Digital Stories Collection

{{Pama–Nyungan languages|Paman}}

Category:Yalanjic languages