Creating new words in Gamilaraay and Yuwaalaraay

Abstract

This work aims to develop strategies for forming new words in Gamilaraay and Yuwaalaraay, two languages from the north of New South Wales. It makes the premise that appropriate new words are formed according to three principles.Firstly the final decision about the adoption of proposed new words rests with Gamilaraay - Yuwaalaraay people. Secondly new words should be formed in the way traditional Gamilaraay - Yuwaalaraay formed new words. The third principle is to acknowledge that Gamilaraay - Yuwaalaraay (henceforth GY) are reviving languages in a situation where English is dominant. The first principle is discussed in 2.3 and has been used when new words have been adopted recently as part of GY revival. The main conclusions relating to the third principle are that borrowing from English is not a recommended strategy and that compounding and derivational word formation strategies are recommended because they produce words which are easier to learn. The second principle is the main focus of this work. Because there are no fluent GY speakers the grammar of GY word production has to be redeveloped. This involves both a review of historical sources and development of new grammar. The need for new words arises in the context of language revival, where new words are needed to talk about everyday concepts. The term ‘new word’ can be used in a number of ways. It can refer to a word rediscovered in the GY sources. It can mean a word created by derivational processes, but with predictable meaning. However in the context of this thesis ‘new word’ is normally used to refer to a consciously constructed word whose meaning is not recoverable from its component parts. Such a word has ‘idiosyncratic meaning’ in contrast to the ‘predictable meaning’ of many derivations.