Warndarrang language facts for kids

Warndarang (pronounced wan-da-rang) was an Aboriginal Australian language. It is now extinct, meaning no one speaks it anymore. The last person who spoke Warndarang, Isaac Joshua, passed away in 1974.

This language was once spoken by the Warndarang people in southern Arnhem Land, a region in the Northern Territory of Australia. This area is along the Gulf of Carpentaria.

Warndarang had some interesting features. For example, it had a simple way of showing how nouns (like names of people or things) were used in a sentence. But it had very complex systems for pronouns (like "he" or "she") and demonstratives (like "this" or "that"). It mostly used prefixes (small parts added to the beginning of words) and combined words to make longer ones, especially for verbs.

Warndarang is closely related to the Mara language. Mara was traditionally spoken just south of Warndarang and still has a few speakers today. Two other languages, Alawa and Yugul, were spoken to the west of Warndarang. They are also now extinct.

A linguist named Jeffrey Heath wrote a detailed book about Warndarang grammar. Other researchers, like Margaret Sharpe and Arthur Capell, also collected information about the language.

A Language from Arnhem Land

Warndarang belongs to a large group of languages called the Gunwinyguan family. This is the second-biggest language family in Australia. As we mentioned, Warndarang is an extinct language. It was spoken along the Gulf of Carpentaria in Arnhem Land, near the mouths of the Roper, Phelp, and Rose Rivers.

The Warndarang people had a special word, ɳuŋguɭaŋur, which meant "corroboree people." They used this to talk about people from the Roper River area. But they used waɳʈaraŋ specifically for those who spoke the Warndarang language.

Warndarang's Language Family

Within the Gunwinyguan family, Warndarang is most closely related to Mara. Mara is a language that only a few people speak now. Warndarang, Mara, Alawa, and Yugul used to be known as the "Mara-Alawic family." Now, they are considered a subgroup within the larger Gunwinyguan family.

Mara was spoken south of Warndarang, along the coast and the Limmen Bight River. Yugul and Alawa were spoken more inland, to the west. Both Yugul and Alawa seem to be extinct today. The areas where Warndarang was spoken were next to lands where Ngandi and Nunggubuyu were spoken. Warndarang speakers had a lot of contact with these languages. Ngandi is also extinct, but some Nunggubuyu children still speak parts of their language.

Warndarang People and Their Groups

The Warndarang people divided themselves into four main groups for special ceremonies. These groups were called mambali, muruŋun, wuʈal, and guyal (or wuyal). The mambali and muruŋun groups were connected, and so were wuʈal and guyal. This meant that a person from one group could learn and sing the traditional songs of their connected group.

Each group also had a special watering hole and animal totems. For example, the muruŋun group had the dugong (ŋarugalin) as their totem. Even though these were special to each group, anyone could drink from the watering holes. Also, people were allowed to eat their totem animal. This way of organizing groups was very similar to how the Mara and Nunggubuyu people structured their communities.

How We Know About Warndarang

Most of what we know about Warndarang comes from a linguist named Jeffrey Heath. He worked for a short time in 1973 and 1974 with Isaac Joshua. Isaac was the last speaker of Warndarang. He was born around 1904 near the Phelp River. As a young man, he worked as a stockman with the Mara people. Because of this, he hadn't spoken much Warndarang for many years. He usually spoke Mara, English, Kriol, or Nunggubuyu.

Even so, Isaac was a great helper for Heath. He knew a lot about plants, animals, and important religious words in Warndarang. Margaret Sharpe also worked with Isaac Joshua in the 1960s. Arthur Capell worked with Isaac's brother, Joshua Joshua, in the 1940s. After Isaac passed away, Heath checked a few things with an older woman named Elizabeth Joshua, who remembered a little bit of the language.

Warndarang Grammar Basics

This section explains some basic rules of the Warndarang language.

Sounds of Warndarang

Consonant Sounds

Warndarang had many consonant sounds, similar to other Australian languages. It had sounds made with both lips (like 'b' or 'm'), and sounds made with the tongue in different parts of the mouth (like 'd' or 'n'). There were also sounds like 'l' and 'r'.

Here is a table showing the main consonant sounds in Warndarang:

Vowel Sounds

Warndarang mainly used three vowel sounds: /a/, /i/, and /u/. A few words had an /e/ sound, but these were likely borrowed from other languages. There was also one word with an /o/ sound, which was the interjection yo!, meaning "yes, good!"

How Words are Formed

Repeating Parts of Words (Reduplication)

Repeating parts of words, called reduplication, was common in Warndarang. When a verb was repeated, it usually meant the action happened many times, continuously, or was done by many people. For example, ala-biyi-wiyima meant "they were all fighting."

For nouns and adjectives, reduplication often showed that there were many of something, especially for people. For instance, wulu-muna-munaɳa-ɲu meant "white people." Reduplication could be repeating the whole word, one syllable, or two syllables.

Nouns and Adjectives

In Warndarang, nouns (names of things) and adjectives (words that describe things) were treated the same way in grammar.

Noun Classes

Nouns that referred to humans belonged to one of six groups, shown by prefixes (small parts added to the beginning of the word):

There were also six groups for non-human nouns, also marked by prefixes. It wasn't always clear why a noun belonged to a certain group, but there were some general rules:

Case Markings

Nouns in Warndarang could have suffixes (small parts added to the end of words) to show their role in a sentence. This is called case marking. There were six main cases:

The nominative case was used for the subject of a sentence, and also for direct and indirect objects. Unlike many other Australian languages, Warndarang showed the difference between subject and object on the verb, not on the noun.

Articles

Besides the class markers, there were also articles that showed the number and gender of nouns. For human nouns, there were four articles:

For non-human nouns, there were six articles, matching the non-human noun classes. The –nu part of these articles could sometimes be left out.

Family Words (Kin Terms)

Usually, to show possession in Warndarang (like "my book"), you just put the possessive pronoun and the owner's name next to the object. But for family terms (like "father" or "mother"), special prefixes were used. For "my/our" family member, it was ŋa-. For "your" family member, it was ø-. For "his/their" family member, it used a noun class prefix and another suffix.

For example:

Calling People (Vocatives)

Vocatives are words used to directly address someone, like "Hey, John!" In Warndarang, these included family terms and words about a person's age, gender, or social status. People usually didn't use personal names to address someone directly. Family vocatives often had possessive prefixes, but not articles. For example, ŋa-baba would mean "my father" when you were talking directly to your father.

There were also interjections to get someone's attention: ɳamaɻ for one person, ŋudjuguɲay for two people, and ŋuduguɲay for many people.

Numbers (Quantifiers)

Warndarang also had words to show the number of an object. These words came before the noun.

Pronouns

Warndarang pronouns (words like "I," "you," "he," "she," "it," "we," "they") were complex. They changed based on who was speaking, how many people, gender (for "he" or "she"), and whether "we" included the person you were talking to or not. Non-human pronouns also changed based on their noun class.

Pronouns were also added as prefixes to verbs. Different prefixes were used depending on who was doing the action and who was receiving it.

Demonstrative Pronouns

Demonstratives (like "this" or "that") in Warndarang were also complex. They showed where an object was in space. They had a noun-class prefix followed by a special ending:

Demonstrative Adverbs

These demonstratives could also be used as adverbs (words that describe verbs or adjectives) to show a general location. For example, wu-niya-wala could mean "from there, not too far." They could also show time, like "after that."

Warndarang also had adverbs for the cardinal directions (East, West, North, South). These words changed depending on whether they meant "at that place," "towards that direction," or "from that direction."

Verbs in Warndarang

The basic verb in Warndarang had a pronoun prefix, the verb stem itself, and suffixes that showed when the action happened (tense), how it happened (aspect), and the mood (like a command). Other prefixes could be added before the pronoun prefix, such as a negative prefix meaning "not."

Sometimes, there was a "main verb" that gave the basic idea, and an "auxiliary verb" that added more detail. If so, the main verb became a prefix to the auxiliary verb.

Verb Suffixes

The suffix of a verb could show eight different categories, such as:

• Past action (happened once or continuously)
• Future action (will happen once or continuously)
• Present action
• Commands (imperative)

The exact form of these suffixes depended on the verb they were added to.

Reflexive and Reciprocal Verbs

Reflexive markers were part of the verb stem. They showed that the action was "done to oneself" or had a passive meaning (e.g., "I cut myself" or "I was cut").

The reciprocal marker showed that people were doing something to each other (e.g., "they hit each other").

Making Verbs Negative

To make a verb negative (like "not going"), the verb complex always started with the prefix gu-.

Other Verb Prefixes

Other prefixes could be added to verbs. For example, -ɻaŋani- meant "no one" was the subject. –ma- showed that the action was for someone else (benefactive). The prefix -ya- showed that the action was directed towards the speaker or a specific point (centripetal). For example, ŋa-gaya meant "I took it," but ya-ŋa-gaya meant "I brought it."

Asking Questions

To ask a yes/no question in Warndarang, you would say a statement with a slight change in your voice (the pitch would rise on the second-to-last syllable and fall on the last). You could also add jabay "maybe" to the end of the statement, like saying "you're going to the store, right?"

Other types of questions used special words, often starting with the noun classifier wu-. For example, wu-ngaŋa meant "what thing?" To ask "why?", you would add -ni to make wu-ngaŋa-ni.

How Sentences are Built (Syntax)

Just like in English, most Warndarang sentences followed a subject-verb (SV) order for simple actions (like "He sleeps"). For actions with an object, it was usually agent-verb-object (AVO) (like "He eats apples"). However, other orders were possible to emphasize certain parts of the sentence.

Emphasizing Parts of a Sentence (Focusing)

To emphasize a part of a Warndarang sentence, that part was moved to the beginning of the sentence and separated by the word wu-nu. For example, ɲala-ɲala wu-nu ŋabaɻu-ŋa-maɻi meant "I nearly died," emphasizing that the speaker nearly died.

Example Sentences

Here are some examples of Warndarang sentences spoken by Isaac Joshua:

1) Wu-nu wu-niya ɻa-maɻawuriɳa, ɻa-maɻawuriɳa, wu-nu jaɻag-jaɻagara-bani, yo, wu-naya wu-nu ʈiwar-ija yo, mangarŋararu-ba.

• Meaning: "This is magical poison. They always make poison. Someone threw it here, someone threw it on my body."

2) Gu-ɻaŋani-biŋju-ga, wu-yagu wu-njaɻi, ɻa-njaɻi ŋaldudga-jani ɻa-ŋuɳu-ɲu.

• Meaning: "There were so many fish that no one could have caught them all."

3) Wu-nɲaya, wiya ara-ŋama-ŋama ɻa-yaraman-gu wu-nɲya-wala wu-nu ʈuɳg-iŋa ʈuʈul wu-niɲi Roper Valley.

• Meaning: "There they [Long Peter and companions] ate some of the horses. Then they left for Roper Valley."

Comparing Maran Languages

Warndarang, which became extinct in 1974, and Mara, which has very few speakers left, are the closest relatives. Along with Alawa (extinct since the early 1970s) and Yugul (also extinct), these languages form the Maran subgroup of the Gunwinyguan language family. The three documented languages (Warndarang, Mara, Alawa) share many words and have similar grammar rules. However, there are also big differences. Warndarang was also heavily influenced by words borrowed from Nunggubuyu and Ngandi languages to the north.

Verb Comparisons

All three languages used prefixes for verbs. Their verbs either had one main part that changed, or an unchanging "main verb" followed by a changing "auxiliary verb." The Maran languages also repeated parts of verbs to show repeated or continuous actions. To make verbs negative, they used a special word right before the verb (gu in Warndarang and Mara, but ŋayi in Alawa).

Mara had a much more complex system for changing verbs than Warndarang. Both languages had specific ways verbs changed depending on the verb itself. Mara and Warndarang also used word order to emphasize certain parts of a sentence.

Noun Comparisons

Alawa divided its nouns into two genders (male and female). Mara had three classes (male, female, and neutral). Warndarang had six noun classes. All three languages could tell the difference between one, two, or many things. Warndarang even had an extra "paucal" class for human nouns, meaning three to five people.

The way Warndarang and Mara used noun cases was almost the same. However, the Alawa case system was quite different. The demonstratives (like "this" or "that") in Warndarang and Mara covered similar ideas (close, immediate, far, already mentioned). But the words themselves were not very similar. Mara demonstratives changed for case, number, and gender, while Warndarang demonstratives had a single basic form. The Alawa demonstrative system was completely separate, only distinguishing "this" from "that."

The words for directions (East, West, North, South) were similar in Warndarang and Mara. For example, gargaɭi (Mara) and argaɭi (Warndarang) both meant "west." Mara had a more complex system for these direction words. Mara also had an up/down direction difference that Warndarang did not. There is no information about cardinal directions in Alawa.

Word Comparisons

The words for cultural things were different among the three languages. Mara had a very complex system for family terms. Warndarang's system seemed simpler, but not much information was collected before the last speaker died. Alawa had a family term system similar to Mara's, but it lacked some specific terms and shared few common words. A quick look at plant and animal names in the three languages also shows few common words. However, the names of the semi-moieties (the special groups) in Warndarang and Mara were almost identical, even though the groups had different totems, songs, and rituals.

See also

• Non-Pama–Nyungan languages