Barranbinja language
| Barranbinja | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Australia |
| Region | New South Wales |
| Ethnicity | Barranbinya |
| Extinct | 1979 |
Pama–Nyungan
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | None (mis) |
| Glottolog | barr1252 |
| AIATSIS[1] | D26 |
 Barranbinja (green) among other Pama–Nyungan languages (tan) | |
Barranbinja or Barrabinya is an extinct Australian Aboriginal language of New South Wales.[2] The last speaker was probably Emily Margaret Horneville (d. 1979), who was recorded by Lynette Oates who then published a short description of it.[3] It had also been recorded by R.H. Mathews along with Muruwari,[4] though not all items in his wordlist were recognised by Horneville. Both Mathews and Oates conclude that Barranbinya and Muruwari were in a dialect relation.
Relationship with other languages[edit]
Lynette Oates' work on Muruwari and Barranbinya gives a cognate count of 44% between the two varieties, concluding that both were likely in a dialect relation.[3] R.H. Mathews (1903), who recorded both Muruwari and Barranbinya, also commented that besides vocabulary differences, the grammar of both Muruwari and Barranbinya were essentially the same.[4]
Together, Muruwari and Barranbinya form an isolate group within the Pama-Nyungan language family, and were very different in many respects from their geographic neighbours (which belong to many different Pama-Nyungan subgroups).[3] For more information, see the description for Muruwari.
Phonology[edit]
Phonemic inventory[edit]
The phonemic inventory is very similar to Muruwari, although the relative paucity of data means that the status of many phonemes is not clear (in round brackets).[3]
| Peripheral | Apical | Laminal | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Velar | Labial | Retroflex | Alveolar | Palatal | Dental | |
| Stops | ⟨g⟩ /k/ | ⟨b⟩ /p/ | ⟨rd⟩* /ʈ/ | ⟨d⟩ /t/ | ⟨dy⟩* /c/ | ⟨dh⟩ /t̪/ |
| Nasals | ⟨ng⟩ /ŋ/ | ⟨m⟩ /m/ | ⟨rn⟩* /ɳ/ | ⟨n⟩ /n/ | ⟨ny⟩* /ɲ/ | ⟨nh⟩ /n̪/ |
| Laterals | (⟨rl⟩* /ɭ/) | ⟨l⟩* /l/ | (⟨ly⟩* /ʎ/) | (⟨lh⟩* /l̪/) | ||
| Rhotics | ⟨r⟩* /ɻ/ | (⟨R⟩* /ɾ/) | ||||
| ⟨rr⟩* /r/ | ||||||
| Semivowels | ⟨w⟩ /w/ | ⟨y⟩ /j/ | ||||
All phonemes except those with a star (*) may be word-initial.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | ⟨i⟩ /i/, ⟨ii⟩ /iː/ |
⟨u⟩ /u/, ⟨uu⟩ /uː/ | |
| Low | ⟨a⟩ /a/, ⟨aa⟩ /aː/ |
Phonotactics[edit]
Nearly all words end in a vowel, though there are some rare occurrences of word-final -ny and -n, which is in stark contrast with neighbouring Muruwari and Ngiyambaa, where word-final nasals and approximants are very common. Oates speculates that this may be he result of influence from Paakantyi and other western languages, which also display a preference for word-final vowels.
References[edit]
- ^ D26 Barranbinja at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
- ^ Dixon, R. M. W. (2002). Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development. Cambridge University Press. p. xxxv.
- ^ a b c d e Oates, Lynette (1988). "Barranbinya: Fragments of a N.S.W. Aboriginal language". Papers in Australian Linguistics. 17: 185–204.
- ^ a b Mathews, Robert Hamilton (1903). "The Burranbinya language". Proceedings and Transactions of the Royal Geographic Society of Australia, Queensland. 18 (57).