A new diglossia : contemporary speech varieties at Yirrkala in North East Arnhem land
Creators: name: Amery, Rob
Publisher: name: Canberra, ACT : The Australian National University
Year: 1985
Subjects: subject: Australian languages Australia Yirrkala (N.T.)

description: This subthesis is concerned with one aspect of the sociolinguistic situation at Yirrkala in N.E. Arnhem Land. In particular I shall be looking at the role and structure of a contemporary dialect of Yolngu Matha, Dhuwaya or so called "Baby Gumatj" in relation to other clan dialects. The main purpose of choosing this thesis topic is to lay some linguistic groundwork for the making of an informed decision in regard to the use of Dhuwaya within the bilingual program at Yirrkala Community School. If it is decided to employ Dhuwaya in the earlier grades (which appears to be the case), then guidelines are needed to determine which Dhuwaya forms should be employed. Adult language should be employed to serve as a model. Thus criteria are presented for choosing adult forms in preference to developmental forms. By undertaking research into Dhuwaya, I am not trying to encourage the use of Dhuwaya in any way. On the contrary, by establishing the ways in which Dhuwaya differs from clan languages and by making these differences explicit, any formal language programs undertaken in the school or in the community in the future may utilize these findings. This then would facilitate clan language acquisition by the younger generation. I use the title R New Diglossio in two senses : a) Yirrkala is a diglossic situation not previously described and is a departure from the diglossia originally defined by Ferguson (1959). b) The diglossic situation at Yirrkala appears to have been a recent development and is in fact s till in the making. In this sense it is a new diglossia chronologically. See Section 4.4 for explication. This study is by necessity a somewhat cursory overview. As a Balanda (white Australian) without having previous exposure to Top End Northern Territory communities or to Aboriginal languages of N.E. Arnhem Land3, data collection and transcription proved extremely difficult. This was especially the case because Dhuwaya is a highly stigmatized language variety at Yirrkala. This preliminary study points to the need for an in-depth longitudinal sociolinguistic study. Such a study should prove valuable in understanding issues of language maintenance within the bilingual program at Yirrkala Community School and for educational policies in the isolated homeland centres. Brief chapter summaries are as follows: CHAPTER 1 provides background material including: a) historical, b) sociological and c) linguistic, relevant to the study of Dhuwaya and its sociolinguistic context. Methodology and approach is outlined in 1.6. There are three varieties, Baby Dhuwaya, Deuelopmental Dhuwaya and Rdult Dhuwaya, all subsumed by the labels Dhuwaya or “Baby Gumatj" in common usage. These three varieties have separate identifiable phonological and morphological features. CHAPTER 2 outlines and discusses phonological features of Dhuwaya and makes comparisons between Baby Dhuwaya, Developmental Dhuwaya and Adult Dhuwaya phonology. CHAPTER 3 discusses morphological features of Adult Dhuwaya relative to a) clan dialects and b) Developmental Dhuwaya. Dhuwaya is characterized by specific morphological rules applying to dialect sensitive morphemes; rules which take into account the dialect differences between Dhuwal and Dhuwala dialects. CHAPTER 4 discusses the differences between the three varieties of Dhuwaya and the rationale for differentiating between them. Baby Dhuwaya is a restricted register demonstrating universal characteristics of Baby Talk registers whilst Developmental Dhuwaya is a maturational or child language variety illustrating features typical of developmental varieties universally. Although Developmental Dhuwaya as spoken by very young children shares many features in common with Baby Dhuwaya, there are s till important differences remaining. Adult Dhuwaya functions as a communilect or common language for the younger generation, but belongs specifically to Yirrkala and its homelands. The Yirrkala situation is quite different to other Yolngu communities in N.E. Arnhem Land (e.g. Galiwin’ku where a clan language Djambarrpuyngu has become the communilect.) At Yirrkala Dhuwaya functions as the L (Low) variety in a diglossic situation, where multilingualism is the norm. CHAPTER 5 summarizes the linguistic findings and in the light of these and other sociolinguistic evidence discusses various theories on the origin of Dhuwaya. It differs from other Yolngu Matha dialects in much the same way linguistically as these dialects differ from each other. I conclude that the most likely theory is that Dhuwaya has developed by means of koineization of Eastern Dhuwala/Dhuwal Baby Talk or ‘motherese' and developmental varieties. Dhuwaya is structurally and functionally an almost prototypical koine language variety. The implications for sociolinguistic theory, of this unique diglossic situation in North East Arnhem Land, are discussed briefly. CHAPTER 6 discusses the implications of these findings for the future in terms of a) language maintenance and b) the Yirrkala Community School bilingual education program. I conclude that the linguistic differences between Dhuwaya and other Dhuwala/Dhuwal dialects are really quite minimal. Should the community agree to the use of Dhuwaya in the earlier grades in the school, I am suggesting specific recommendations as to the variety of Dhuwaya to be employed. Adult Dhuwaya forms are better employed and I present criteria for differentiating adult forms from developmental and Baby Talk forms. Several sample texts, chosen for their exemplification of different varieties of Dhuwaya, are included in an appendix.