In the course of an explanation of site changes, Anggarrgoon presents a most interesting explanation of a bit of Bardi grammar:
"look like" or "resemble" is irrganbala, it's a noun, it's inalienably possessed, it's (understandably) obligatorily plural. It is also one of very few words to take the "spouse" suffix -milj. I call it a "spouse" suffix because it marks "appropriate" pairs, e.g. iilamilj, a dog and its mate. irrganbalamilj, though, means "they look like each other". I can't remember an etymology, if I ever found one, but it bears a suspicious resemblance to the word for track, footprints, niinbil or niinbal (which would be what we'd expect for the singular, from ni-ganbala, which I think would have to be reconstructed as *niganbila to make the vowels turn out right.) Not to be confused with niyambal, niimbal 'foot, footprints'. n doesn't normally assimilate to b.I have to say, much as I enjoy explaining the role of coincidence to people convinced two similar-sounding words must be related, even I find it hard to believe niinbal and niimbal, both meaning 'footprints,' are unrelated. Not saying it ain't so, just pointing out that I'm not immune to the natural human craving to connect similar things. Posted by languagehat at September 26, 2004 01:53 PM
Ha ha.
Resist, Hat, resist, and keep in mind that if "bell" and "belfry" are unrelated (which they are), and if "minimum" and "miniature" share no kinship (which they don't), perhaps only a nimble trick might yoke "niinbal" to "niimbal."
More to the point, I have never heard of this tongue Bardi! Though, I must say, it sounds epic.
Posted by: elck at September 26, 2004 02:48 PMHeh. Bardi -- and looking at that Ethnologue article, I see the primary spelling is BAADI. Goddammit, is this another of those Brit spellings where -r- is used pointlessly to extend a previous vowel??
Posted by: language hat at September 26, 2004 03:39 PMHi everyone,
That ethnologue spelling is as right as Bardi, ie they're both wrong. Phonemically, the language is /ba:d,i/ (long a, retroflex d). In the practical orthography, that comes out as Baardi. When the community orthography was codified in 1990 they decided to make the language name an exception to the spelling, because "Bardi" was on the store, clinic, school, community documents, etc etc. The ethnologue name comes from, I think, the Capell/Elkin/Worms/etc 1950s work, ultimately. They were ok on vowel length but had a lot of trouble with retroflection. I've pointed this out to Ethnologue, twice actually, but apparently getting the primary spelling changed is harder than the 3rd or 4th hardest thing you can think of.
I should have also mentioned re niinbal and niimbal: if I'm right, the first comes from a stem -ganbal, the second from -jambal. The ni- is the 3rd person possessive prefix. ijV and igV both get lenited and come out the same. You can see the stem in "their feet" - irrjambal, where there's no lenition.
Posted by: Claire at September 26, 2004 05:27 PM
Thanks for the elaboration! (It must be pretty cool to see your name attached to an Ethnologue article...)
Posted by: language hat at September 26, 2004 06:03 PM"is this another of those Brit spellings where -r- is used pointlessly to extend a previous vowel"
No it's an AUSTRALIAN spelling where -r- is used pointlessly to extend a previous vowel.
Why I oughta...
but it's not pointlessly extending the previous vowel, it's non-pointlessly indicating retroflection on the following consonant.
Posted by: Claire at September 26, 2004 11:58 PMOops, I didn't read carefully enough and was just taking umbrage at LH's 'British' slur. But thinking about it, given that the retroflexion isn't something that most Balanda are going to manage, for non-Bardi speakers the r is going to (actually non-pointlessly) lengthen the vowel, which is probably better than nothing, dontcha reckon?
Posted by: Anthony at September 27, 2004 12:26 AMSorry about the careless "Brit." But the point still stands: for those of us (the majority of English speakers) who actually pronounce r's, these spellings are actively misleading. They should be banned, I tell you! Wiped off the face of the earth!
Posted by: language hat at September 27, 2004 07:52 AMyeah, and "Bardi", however it's said, is still a good deal better than some of the things I've heard my friends called by white people. Actually, your writing Balanda (
Poor language hat! think of the problems I have saying/spelling my name in the US - silent rs in both names. Maybe I should just go by my Yolngu name... but that's got a retroflex in it... barnmanarra, btw. I especially like it because the same word means "really hoopy frood" in Bardi. My yapa gave it to me, it means cabbage tree palm frond in Yan-nhangu.
Incidentally, I've heard the occasional Florider over the past few weeks...
Posted by: Claire at September 28, 2004 12:08 AMTo a Swede, writing -rd- for a retroflex -d- is a rule, to which there is no exception in most dialects. It even sometimes(?) always(?) works across a morpheme boundary -r|d-.
Posted by: anders at October 1, 2004 02:17 PM