The Bayala Databases
The Bayala Databases are a set of relational databases containing words and sentences in Aboriginal languages from across the country. In the databases, words appear in full and also as broken up into their stem and one or several suffixes (and sometimes prefixes). The databases began simply as lists of Aboriginal words and their corresponding English meanings. Since then they have become increasingly complex, and now provide much more. To give a single instance of their power, you can find virtually all the words for 'kangaroo' (or anything else) used across the entire country—limited only by the amount of information that has been added to the databases. That is to say, not every last instance of Aboriginal words for 'kangaroo' has yet been added to the databases, although a large number have been.
While it would be ideal to have the databases as part of this website, this has not proved possible. They were devised using the database platform or application Filemaker Pro, and to access them one has to buy it. This website and the databases have no other connection with Filemaker Pro: Filemaker Pro just happens to be the platform that was used when developing them. Because the databases have become as complex as they have, this explanation of how they work has been prepared for the benefit of anyone who might purchase Filemaker Pro and obtain a copy of the databases, the originals of which are held by Jeremy Steele who may be contacted through this website.
INTRODUCTION
Baya is the Sydney Aboriginal language Biyal Biyal (BB) word for ‘speak’. With the reciprocal and/or reflexive suffix -la it becomes ‘speak reciprocally’, or ‘converse’. The databases have been collectively named the Bayala databases because they are intended to interact or, in a sense, ‘converse’ with a person who uses them (the User). They were commenced sometime before 1999, beginning as a simple word list with associated meanings as in a basic foreign-language dictionary. They are the work of Jeremy Macdonald Steele (the Developer) and in 2005 were submitted as part of a Macquarie University master’s thesis on the Sydney Aboriginal language. This thesis may be freely downloaded at <http://hdl.handle.net/1959.14/738>.
PURPOSE
The purpose of the databases is to enable the finding out of as much information about the Indigenous languages covered as possible. Take for instance the word naabawinya, deriving from a record made by William Dawes (and used by the Developer in association with a blog, now discontinued, <naabawinya.blogspot.com>):
Fig. 0.1 na-ba-wi-nya
Dawes wrote it as “Nābaou-ínia”, which on respelling in its simplest form (without double letters or hyphens) becomes nabawinya. The databases enable words such as this to be displayed revealing their constituent parts—here stem: na; future tense marker: ba; and two pronouns: wi; ‘I’ and nya: ‘thee’. All four parts of this word can then be separately searched for, and compared with other instances in other words across all of the languages covered. The databases reveal that in south-east Queensland na still means ‘see’, but in Perth na is an exclamation of surprise: ‘Oh! Ah!’
COMPUTER
The Bayala databases were begun on a Macintosh computer, using the application Filemaker Pro. Its increasing sophistication over time enabled the databases gradually to do more. A particular advance by Filemaker Pro was to become ‘relational’, making it possible to search across one or more linked databases at the same time.
Fig. 0.2 Summary of links within the Bayala databases
The graphic illustrates the interrelationships operating for any of the main databases.
Combined database compilations
—COASTAL (North, South, coastal parts of Curr and Antsoc)
—INLAND (Wiradhuri, Kamilaroi, Muruwari, Darling and inland parts of Curr, Antsoc and Murray)
The reason for combining certain databases is that it often saves opening up each constituent database, and checking each separately.
HOW THE DATABASES WORK
There are tens, possibly hundreds, of thousands of lines, or ‘records’ in the various Bayala databases. Here is a source for one of them. It is a word for ‘water’ as recorded in the ‘Anon’ notebook kept by the early governors of NSW, including Governor Phillip of the First Fleet.
Fig. 0.3 "Bādo" badu "Water" water Anon (c) [c:26:1] [BB] [NSW]
The caption to this record shows the following:
“Bā,do”: the original recording in the Australian language
badu: the same, respelt according to a consistent system
“Water”: the original translation
water: the simplified modern translation
Anon (c): the source
[c:26:1]: notebook, page number, and line number
[BB]: the abbreviation for the language (here Biyal Biyal, the term used in these databases for the classical language of Sydney)
The summary line used as a caption to the above illustration is a complex piece of typing, yet it was in fact done with a single key combination: ⌘3. This effect was achieved through a Filemaker Pro calculation field, and the following ‘script’:
Go to Field [ALLSYD:: summary ]
Select All
Copy [Select ; ALLSYD::Summary ]
Go to Field [ALLSYD::word for word JS ]
Paste [ Select ]
In the summary line in the caption to Fig. 0.3, the double quotation marks indicate that the entry captures the original record as closely as possible.
Here is another example, for the future tense of the verb ‘to see’:
Fig. 0.4 "Naabaoú" nA-ba-wu "I shall or will see etc." see-will I Dawes (a) [a:1:13] [BB] [NSW]
"Naabámi" nA-ba-mi "Thou [wilt see]" see-will thou Dawes (a) [a:1:14] [BB] [NSW]
Analysis of the first line, by components, as with badu:
“Naabaoú”: the original recording in the Australian language
nA-ba-wu: the same, respelt (with hyphens)
"I shall or will see etc.": the original translation
see will I: the simplified modern translation
Dawes (a): the source (Dawes’ Notebook ‘a’)
[a:1:14]: notebook, page number, and line number
[BB]: the abbreviation for the language
This is recorded in the ALLSYD database as follows:
Fig. 0.5 “Naabaoú” and “Naabámi”
As this reproduction is too small to read, the key segments are shown in larger size:
Fig. 0.6 Source information for “Naabaoú” and “Naabámi”
Fig. 0.7 Respelling and analysis of “Naabaoú” and “Naabámi”
Fig. 0.8 Date and translation of “Naabaoú” and “Naabámi”
The colours have little significance. Since there are a large number of columns in the databases, colours were applied to more easily distinguish one column from another. Not all columns are used for every entry or record. The colours are applied consistently across all databases. For example, grey is used for original records, a darker shade for the Australian language, lighter for English. Brown is used for respelling; yellow for the standardised English, with shades of yellow for subsidiary parts of the standardised translation.
LANGUAGES INCLUDED
The National Indigenous Languages Report (2020) found that of the around 250 Aboriginal languages that scholars estimate were spoken in Australia in January 1788 only thirteen were being fully used and passed on to the coming generation of children. These languages include the following (although there could be others, especially if dialects are taken into account, and should further linguistic study reveal more):
—Alyawarr
—Anindilyakwa
—Anmatyerre
—Arrernte
—Burrara
—Kala Lagaw Ya
—Murrinh-Patha
—Nyangumarta
—Tiwi
—Warlpiri
—Western Desert Language
—Wik Mungkan
—Yolngu Matha
The Bayala databases contain none of these. Issues of ownership of languages, and copyright, make it simpler and more prudent to leave such fully living languages aside. If the traditional owners of a language were to request that their language be included in the Bayala databases, however, that would be another matter.
The vocabulary lists included in the Bayala databases are instead for the most part of a historical nature. The lists or records are generally thought or assumed to be out of copyright. There is an advantage in focussing on older records in that, after 1788, the virtually immediate overwhelming presence of English rapidly affected Aboriginal languages, particularly as the new European culture brought with it artefacts and ideas that had never been encountered before, and for which there were no Aboriginal Australian words. If you are sitting in a room as you read this, for instance, probably every single thing you see falls into this category: chair, wall, carpet, light, window and so on. And there are new ideas too: Tuesday, fourteen, vermillion and purple, England, how do you do, please, and so on again. The Bayala databases might accordingly be seen as perhaps having captured the classical forms of the languages included in them.
To read further, use the MENU button at the top of the page to access a drop-down list of the main areas of the website. Hover over Bayala Databases to access a second drop-down menu listing the other pages which describe the operation of the databases.