Language recovery of the New South Wales South Coast Aboriginal languages

Abstract

The recent years have witnessed an increase in revisiting language descriptions of the ‘sleeping’ traditional languages of south-east Australia from available historic material. The languages of south-east New South Wales have thus far been largely neglected and this thesis fills a gap in the contemporary language work that has and still is being undertaken on traditional New South Wales languages. This research study investigates the traditional Aboriginal languages of the New South Wales South Coast. The languages presented here are Dharrawal, Dharumba, Dhurga and Djirringanj, which were spoken from the southern parts of Sydney and Botany Bay down along the coast, close to the Victorian border. The language material used for the analysis consists entirely of archival material that was collected by various people between ca. 1834 and 1902. Although previous work on the New South Wales South Coast languages (see Capell (n.d.) and Eades’ (1976)) offered insight into the structure of the languages, the available archival material has not been exhaustively utilised until now. Part B of this thesis presents the seventeen previously unanalysed texts transcribed by Andrew Mackenzie and Robert Hamilton Mathews during the latter half of the 19th Century. These texts supply a significant amount of additional morphological and syntactical information, and insights into narrative and discourse features; as well as mythologies of the South Coast people. Throughout the thesis, issues of working from archival material are appropriately discussed to clarify interpretation of the material and to introduce the reader to the stages and processes involved in working from historic material. This work is ultimately produced as a tool for local Aboriginal communities and community members to assist in current and future language reclamation and revitalisation projects, and to allow for projects to aim for higher language proficiency than has previously been possible. Show more