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A study of the more than two hundred different Aboriginal languages of Australia. Professor Dixon deals first with the general character of these languages, and their use and role in Australia today. He stresses that they are in no sense 'primitive' languages, but have a rich and complex grammar with the many subtle and distinctive features. He goes on to demonstrate this in the first-ever study of their genetic relationships, probable origins and historical development, and their grammatical and phonological behaviour. This is in many ways a pioneering work, and a fundamental one. The Press has already published two major scholarly studies by Professor Dixon of individual Australian languages, Dyirbal and Yidin. He offers here the synthesis that they pointed towards, provisional still in many of its details, but sufficiently convincing in outline to stimulate the next stage of professional research, to provide the general linguist with the kind of survey to the interested Australian something of the extraordinary linguistic heritage of the continent, now and for some time past seriously at risk.
This handbook makes available short grammatical sketches of Australian languages. Each grammar is written in a standard format, following guidelines provided by the editors, and includes a sample text and vocabulary text. In the introduction the editors discuss some of the recurrent features of languages across the continent, together with grammars of Guugu Yimidhirr by John Haviland; Pitta-Pitta by Barry J. Blake; Gumbaynggir by Diana Eades; and Yaygir by Terry Crowley.
Professor Dixon presents a comprehensive study of the indigenous languages of Australia.
A substantial proportion of what is discoverable about the structure of many Aboriginal languages spoken on the vast Australian continent before their decimation through colonial invasion is contained in nineteenth-century grammars. Many were written by fervent young missionaries who traversed the globe intent on describing the languages spoken by “heathens”, whom they hoped to convert to Christianity. Some of these documents, written before Australian or international academic institutions expressed any interest in Aboriginal languages, are the sole record of some of the hundreds of languages spoken by the first Australians, and many are the most comprehensive. These grammars resulted from prolonged engagement and exchange across a cultural and linguistic divide that is atypical of other early encounters between colonised and colonisers in Australia. Although the Aboriginal contributors to the grammars are frequently unacknowledged and unnamed, their agency is incontrovertible. This history of the early description of Australian Aboriginal languages traces a developing understanding and ability to describe Australian morphosyntax. Focus on grammatical structures that challenged the classically trained missionary-grammarians – the description of the case systems, ergativity, bound pronouns, and processes of clause subordination – identifies the provenance of analyses, development of descriptive techniques, and paths of intellectual descent. The corpus of early grammatical description written between 1834 and 1910 is identified in Chapter 1. Chapter 2 discusses the philological methodology of retrieving data from these grammars. Chapters 3–10 consider the grammars in an order determined both by chronology and by the region in which the languages were spoken, since colonial borders regulated the development of the three schools of descriptive practice that are found to have developed in the pre-academic era of Australian linguistic description.
This handbook makes available short grammatical sketches of Australian languages. Each grammar is written in a standard format, following guidelines provided by the editors, and includes a sample text and vocabulary text. In the introduction the editors discuss some of the recurrent features of languages across the continent, together with grammars of Guugu Yimidhirr by John Haviland; Pitta-Pitta by Barry J. Blake; Gumbaynggir by Diana Eades; and Yaygir by Terry Crowley.
Originally published in 1972, this study is dedicated to the surviving speakers of the Dyirbal, Giramay and Mamu dialects. For more than ten thousand years they lived in harmony with each other and with their environment. Over one hundred years ago many of them were shot and poisoned by European invaders. Those allowed to survive have been barely tolerated tenants on their own lands, and have had their beliefs, habits and language help up to ridicule and scorn. In the last decade they have seen their remaining forests taken and cleared by an American company, with the destruction of sites whose remembered antiquity is many thousands of years older than the furthest event in the shallow history of their desecrators. The survivors of the three tribes have stood up to these diversities with dignity and humour. They continue to look forward to the day when they may again be allowed to live in peaceful possession of some of their own lands, and may be accorded a respect that they have been denied, but which they have been forcibly made to accord to others.
No detailed description available for "Linguistics in Oceania, 2".
The Oxford Guide to Australian Languages is a wide-ranging reference work that explores the more than 550 traditional and new Indigenous languages of Australia. Australian languages have long played an important role in diachronic and synchronic linguistics and are a vital testing ground for linguistic theory. Until now, however, there has been no comprehensive and accessible guide to the their vast linguistic diversity. This volume fills that gap, bringing together leading scholars and junior researchers to provide an up-to-date guide to all aspects of the languages of Australia. The chapters in the book explore typology, documentation, and classification; linguistic structures from phonology to pragmatics and discourse; sociolinguistics and language variation; and language in the community. The final part offers grammatical sketches of a selection of languages, sub-groups, and families. At a time when the number of living Australian languages is significantly reduced even compared to twenty year ago, this volume establishes priorities for future linguistic research and contributes to the language expansion and revitalization efforts that are underway.
No detailed description available for "Linguistics in Oceania".