Table Of Content

Innamincka Words Yandruwandha dictionary and stories Innamincka Words Yandruwandha dictionary and stories compiled by Gavan Breen Published by ANU eView The Australian National University Canberra ACT 0200, Australia Email: [email protected] This title is also available online at http://eview.anu.edu.au National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Title: Innamincka words: Yandruwandha dictionary and stories / compiled by Gavan Breen. ISBN: 9781921934216 (paperback) 9781921934223 (online) Subjects: Innamincka language--Dictionaries. Yandruwandha (Australian people)--Languages--Texts. Queensland--Languages. South Australia--Languages. Other Creators/Contributors: Breen, Gavan, compiler. Dewey Number: 499.15 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Original cover concept by Ciril’s Printers. Cover by Ivo Lovric and layout by ANU Press. Printed by Griffin Press Previous edition © 2004 Pacific Linguistics, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University This edition © 2015 ANU eView This book can be purchased from http://eview.anu.edu.au Table of contents Acknowledgements vi Preface vii Map: Yandruwandha and neighbouring languages viii Photos ix 1 Introduction 1 1.1 A short introduction to the Yandruwandha language 3 1.2 Alphabetical list of suffixes 7 2 Yandruwandha-English dictionary 14 3 English-Yandruwandha finderlist 133 4 Appendix 166 4.1 Naming of new concepts 166 4.2 Placenames 169 4.3 Kinship 170 5 Stories and texts 173 5.1 An ethnographic text [A] 173 5.2 Yandruwandha stories [S] 202 Acknowledgments Naturally, I owe most to Ben Kerwin for the many hours of his time that he gave me for little financial reward over the years. I am indebted also to my other teachers, Tim Guttie, Maudie Naylon and her husband Bob, Willy and Alfie Harris and Hector Harrison, for work that was congenial to some of them but not all. I am grateful to those members of Ben Kerwin’s family who helped me in one way or another, in particular to his daughter Barbara and her husband Kevin Allen, of Burra, South Australia (later Broken Hill, New South Wales), and his daughter Joan and her husband Ron Dennis, of Roma, Queensland, with whom he was living during the periods when the major part of the fieldwork was carried out. They were friendly, cooperative and interested at all times. Ben’s great-grandson Aaron Paterson was interested in recent years and helped with some useful information. I thank my wife Rosalie, who came with me (with small children after the first year) on some field trips and kept me fed and washed. Also the many linguists whose brains I have picked over the years (including Claire Bowern, who gave me a copy of her unpublished work on Nhirrpi) and the anonymous referee who read the manuscript for Pacific Linguistics. I wish to thank also the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (now Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies) for financing all of the fieldwork and most of the analysis, and helping in other ways, and Monash University for equipment, typing and office accommodation during that time. The Burran and later Muda Aboriginal Corporations paid me for a little over a year, during which time the Institute for Aboriginal Development, Alice Springs, provided me with office accommodation and other services. The Queensland Herbarium, the Royal Botanic Gardens and National Herbarium, Sydney and the Royal Botanic Gardens and National Herbarium, Melbourne helped with information on plants. Thanks also to Helen Tolcher for some information, and to Brenda Thornley for the map. Preface Innamincka Words is one of a pair of companion volumes on Yandruwandha, a dialect of the language formerly spoken on the Cooper and Strzelecki Creeks and the country to the north of the Cooper, in the northeast corner of South Australia and a neighbouring strip of Queensland. The other volume is entitled Innamincka Talk: a grammar of the Innamincka dialect of Yandruwandha with notes on other dialects. Innamincka Talk is a more technical work and is intended for specialists and for interested readers who are willing to put some time and effort into studying the language. Innamincka Words is for readers, especially descendants of the original people of the area, who are interested but not ready to undertake serious study of the language. It is also a necessary resource for users of Innamincka Talk. These volumes document all that could be learnt from the last speakers of the language in the last years of their lives by a linguist who was involved with other languages at the same time. These were people who did not have a full knowledge of the culture of their forebears, but were highly competent, indeed brilliant, in the way they could teach what they knew to the linguist student. Although the volumes document only a small part of a rich culture, they are a tribute to the ability and diligence of the teachers. vii QUEENSLAND Mi THAKA 3<:X:. I Lake Yamcne SOUTH AUSTRALIA (addon Downs Qo Cordiiio " Downs Durham : Downs i ,oJ/^e \W« aCtuetrrahboelfbeo * ** "; Narppa ^ V ™cha DIYAR fSirlnoa n,/t na (. -' Water5h ole)T>! Murtamurta Well ■ NEW %OUTH WALES i täte v Carraweena Murnpeowie / Blanche Pit A RCA PA Map: Yandruwandha and neighbouring languages IX Tim Guttie (Nelly Parker) with Fred McKellar at Windorah (1967) X Benny Kerwin at Princess Royal Station, Burra (1972) Benny Kerwin and Bill Gorringe in 1932