Mbabaram language
Australian Aboriginal language
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Mbabaram (Barbaram) is an extinct Australian Aboriginal language of north Queensland, traditionally spoken by the Mbabaram people. R. M. W. Dixon described his hunt for a native speaker of Mbabaram in his book Searching for Aboriginal Languages: Memoirs of a Field Worker. Most of what is known of the language is from Dixon's field research with speaker Albert Bennett.[3]
Recordings are held in the audio collection of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies.[4]
Classification
Mbabaram is a Pama-Nyungan language, specifically belonging to the Paman group.[5]
As part of his theory that the Mbabaram tribe (among others of the region) were of part Tasmanian orgin, Norman Tindale noted the Mbabaram language appeared strongly isolated, but R. M. W. Dixon stated the more reasonable view was that Mbabaram was very recognizably related to the languages of the region.[6]
Geographic distribution
Mbabaram was spoken by the Mbabaram tribe in Queensland, southwest of Cairns (17°20′S 145°0′E).[7] Their territory was bordered by the Walsh River in the north, and included the present localities of Irvinebank, Petford and Lappa.[8]
The nearby languages were Agwamin, Djangun (Kuku-Yalanji), Muluridji (Kuku-Yalanji), Djabugay, Yidiny, Ngadjan (Dyirbal), Mamu (Dyirbal), Jirrbal (Dyirbal), Girramay (Dyirbal), and Warungu. Each language was mutually intelligible with at least its immediate neighbours, but Mbabaram was not mutually intelligible with any of them. Because of the difficulty of the language for other tribes, Mbabaram speakers would tend to learn their languages rather than the other way round.[8]
Phonology
Vowels
Consonants
Phonological history
Vowels
Mbabaram would have originally had three vowels, /i/, /a/ and /u/, with a length distinction in the initial, stressed syllable. Several changes occurred to add /ɛ/, /ɨ/ and /ɔ/ to the system:[9]
- [ɔ] developed from original */a/ in the second syllable of a word if the word began with */ɡ/, */ŋ/, or */wu/, e.g. */ganda/ > /ndɔ/ "burn", */gudaga/ > /dɔg/ "tame dog"
- [ɛ] developed from original */a/ in the second syllable of a word if the word began with */ɟ/, e.g. */djana/ > /nɛ-/ "sit", */djiba/ > /bɛ/ "liver" (It may have also occurred with /ɲ/ or /ji/, but no examples are known.)
- [ɨ] developed from original */u/ in the second syllable of a word if the word began with */ɟ/, */ɲ/, or */j/ e.g. */djambul/ > /mbɨl/ "two", */yundu/ > /ndɨ/ "you"
- [ɨ] developed from original */i/ in the second syllable of a word if the word began with */ɡ/, */ŋ/, or */w/ e.g. */gabirri/ > /bɨrr/ "emu", */wanji/ > /njɨb/ "what"
The first consonant and vowel of each word was then dropped,[10] leaving the distribution of /ɔ ɛ ɨ/ unpredictable.
Vocabulary
- dog (dog), unrelated to the English word
- gungdg (kookaburra)[citation needed]
- yú (fish),[11] unrelated to mandarin yú (鱼)
Word for "dog"
Mbabaram is famous in linguistic circles for a striking coincidence in its vocabulary. When Dixon finally managed to meet Bennett, he began his study of the language by eliciting a few basic nouns; among the first of these was the word for "dog". Bennett supplied the Mbabaram translation, dog. Dixon suspected that Bennett had not understood the question, or that Bennett's knowledge of Mbabaram had been tainted by decades of using English. But it turned out that the Mbabaram word for "dog" was in fact dúg,[12] pronounced almost identically to the Australian English word (compare true cognates such as Yidiny gudaga, Dyirbal guda, Djabugay gurraa and Guugu Yimidhirr gudaa, for example[13]). The similarity is a complete coincidence: the English and Mbabaram languages developed on opposite sides of the planet over the course of tens of thousands of years. This and other false cognates have been cited by typological linguist Bernard Comrie as a caution against deciding that languages are related based on a small number of lexical comparisons.[14]