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Writer's pictureJeremy Steele

AWABAKAL conjoined pronouns

Updated: May 24

The Lake Macquarie missionary the Rev. Lancelot Threlkeld produced a grammar of the language where his mission was established. This language came to be known as Awabakal, though now also referred to as the Lake Macquarie–Hunter River language.


Threlkeld’s grammar and other language works are remarkable for their volume and detail. But as his record is virtually the only one for the language, there is nothing against which to check his assertions about meaning and usage.


One matter in particular concerns the short form pronouns, which in the Sydney language are bound on as suffixes to the stem of verbs, following any other previous suffixes such as for meaning amplification and tense.



Table 1: Extract from Threlkeld’s pronoun table, p.17*


1sg: I

2sg: thou

3sg m: he

3sg f: she

1pl: we

2pl: you

3pl: they

Full form nominative

Nga-toa

Ngin-toa

Niu-woa

Boun-toa

Ngé-en

Nú-ra

Ba-ra

Short form nominative

Bang

Bi

Noa





Accusative

Emmo-ung

Ngiro-ung

Ngiko-ung

Boun-no-un

Ngear-un

Núr-un

Bar-un.

Short form accusative

Tia

Bin

Bón





* THRELKELD, L. E. (1892a) An Australian language as spoken by the Awabakal, the people of Awaba or Lake Macquarie (near Newcastle, New South Wales) being an account of their language, traditions and customs / by L.E. Threlkeld; re-arranged, condensed and edited with an appendix by John Fraser, Sydney, Charles Potter, Government Printer.


Threlkeld provides a table for the ‘conjoined dual’, or nominative-accusative short-form pronouns:


Table 2: Conjoined dual forms

Ba-nung

Ba-noun

Bi-tia

Bi-núng

Bi-noun

Bi-loa

Bin-toa

I-thee

I-her

thou-me

thou-him

thou-her

he-thee

she-thee

What seems to be probably correct in this table are the short forms for:

I: ba                  me: tia thou: bi             thee: bin and possibly: her: noun as picked out in blue in the table above.


Possibly correct, though not appearing in Table 2, is: him: nung. This is an accusative suffix, so could well be used for ‘him’.


Troubling points include the following: nung:                  used for both ‘thee’ and ‘him’ loa/toa:              ‘thee’: –luwa, –duwa are actually causative, comitative or proprietive suffixes bi-loa:                bi actually means ‘thou’, not ‘he’ bin-dua:            bin actually means ‘thee’, not ‘she’


In the whole of the Threlkeld body of work there are almost no examples of the pronoun combinations in Table 2 other than for ‘thou-me’, e.g.

original

Kotåra bi tia ġuwa buwil koa bón baġ

respelt

gudara bi diya nguwa buwilguwa bun bang

original translation

Cudgel thou me give to-strike (ut) {in order} him I.  / 

word-for-word

club thou me give-IMP! beat might-having him I

idiomatic

Give me a club so that I can beat him

A more likely set of nominative-accusative pronouns than in Table 2 would seem to be as in Table 3:


Table 3: Proposed complete set of singular conjoined dual pronouns

I thee

ba bin



I him

ba nung

I her

ba nun

thou me

bi diya



thou him

bi bun

thou her

bi nun

he me

nuwa diya

he thee

nuwa bin



he her

nuwa duwa

she me

nun diya

she thee

nun bin

she him

nun bun



All the words shown in blue can be found in Threlkeld’s table. Words in red are speculative inventions. Words in pink are speculative combinations. Spellings in Table 3 are as used in the Bayala Australian Language Databases.


Jeremy Steele 8 May 2018

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