CHAPTER 5

BUNDJALUNG: TEACHING A DISAPPEARING LANGUAGE

Margaret Sharpe

INTRODUCTION

Bundjalung is the name given to the language spoken in the area shown in the map (Map 7). We spell it Bundjalung so that the average English speaker will read and pronounce it correctly, as desired by Bundjalung people. In some publications for linguistically trained readers, the name is spelt Bandjalang, but the a is meant to indicate a vowel like that of English bun or lung rather than that of ban or Lang.

As Map 7 shows, there were various dialects of Bundjalung. Most of these had names which the speakers themselves or their neighbours used to identify some characteristic of the dialect. For example, the Minyangbal people are those who use the word minyang (meaning ‘what?’), whereas the Nyangbal people are those who say nyang for ‘what?’. Similarly, names like Wiyabal, Wuyehbal, Wahlubal and so on, are based on different words for ‘you (singular)’, all of them carrying the suffix -bal meaning ‘those who say’.

My own experience of Bundjalung began in 1965 when I went to Woodenbong in northern New South Wales to record information on the Yugambeh dialect of Bundjalung from a man who was considered to be the last person with significant knowledge of this dialect. At that time there was a big drive in Australia to record ‘dying’ languages and dialects. There was also great concern to get ‘pure’ language, not ‘contaminated’ with English, and to carefully record differences in neighbouring dialects. Two members of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, Brian and Helen Geytenbeek, were living at Woodenbong at the time, with the aim of translating the Bible into the Gidhabal dialect. There were then a number of fluent speakers of that dialect at Woodenbong. The Geytenbeeks later spent some time at Tabulam, where it appeared that a greater number of younger people spoke some Bundjalung. But they eventually came to the conclusion that a simplified English Bible translation would be far more use to the Woodenbong and Tabulam people than a Bundjalung one would be. All people spoke English, and younger people did not know much Bundjalung.

There are still a few people who can speak the language fluently and who use it with each other, though for a restricted range of functions. A good number of people of all ages (including children) use some Bundjalung words in their English (for such things as turtle, echidna, witchetty grubs, bodily functions, food and cigarettes), and a number (particularly at Baryulgil) use some Bundjalung phrases within English. There have also been school language programs and courses in Bundjalung held not only in northern New South Wales, but also in southern Queensland and in Victoria. Bundjalung people and some non-Aboriginal people have been keen to know more about the language: some courses have been instigated by Bundjalung people; others by non-Bundjalung Aboriginal people; and some by non-Aboriginal people, including school staff and others. In these courses constant issues for organisers and students are: what is the ‘correct’ word or phrase to teach, the ‘correct’ pronunciation; why are there variant forms; and which of the variant forms should be used?

Map 7: Approximate location of the Bundjalung-Yugam dialects. The broken line encloses the approximate dialect ranges of the language. The unbroken line encloses the Bundjalung dialects (taken with permission from Sharpe et al 1985, xviii).

THE SPECIAL PLACE OF BUNDJALUNG

Bundjalung is unusual in New South Wales, and indeed in Australia, for two reasons. The first is that it has been studied for a relatively long time; the second, that there are still some people living who learned it as their first language, even in one of the most densely populated rural areas of Australia.

There are word lists in Curr (1886-87), and a useful if brief grammar of the Minyang (Brunswick River) dialect published in 1892. A grammar and vocabulary of the Wangerriburra clan of the Beaudesert area was published in 1913, co-authored by a Wangerriburra man (Bulam or John Allen) who had used the language as a child, and a white colleague. A grammar of another dialect, presumably spoken around Casino, was written in the 1940s by a medical doctor (Smythe 1978 [c 1942 or 1948]); and grammars have been published from the late 1960s onwards in Yugambeh (Cunningham 1969), Gidhabal (Geytenbeek 1971), Wiyabal/Wuyehbal of Lismore/Coraki (Holmer 1971), Wahlubal and Wehlubal (Crowley 1978), and Manandjali or Yugambeh (Holmer 1983).

Attitudes towards ‘sharing’ the language with whites have varied from community to community. One community, near Coraki, has generally been antagonistic to whites — unless, understandably, they were trusted friends with an understanding of the culture. Others, both as individuals and as groups, have been keen for the language — and some cultural activities also — to be preserved, and to be taught to any interested person, irrespective of race. Notable advocates have included Joe Culham, Lyle Roberts the younger, and the Kombumerri Aboriginal Corporation. In 1965 and 1966 I recorded data from Joe Culham. Lyle Roberts the younger (a nephew of an older Lyle Roberts) lived in Lismore and died some years ago: over many years he passed on information to the late Marjorie Oakes, and he encouraged children to learn dances, with no restrictions on whether they were of Aboriginal descent or not. The Kombumerri Aboriginal Corporation of southern Brisbane and the Gold Coast (places traditionally within their dialect area) obtained funding for courses in the language in 1988, 1989 and 1990, and welcomed a number of non-Aboriginal participants. The reluctance of the Coraki group to share knowledge with whites seems to have several causes: the Coraki people may have assumed that academic writers have gained financially from their published books (which is generally not the case, although there is little doubt the writers have gained in academic status by their work); they have also felt whites have taken so much from them, and it is a matter of pride and dignity to retain something of their own, and to maintain sufficient separateness in language use to allow privacy.

It has also been proposed (Calley 1960, Crowley 1978) that the Bundjalung were survivors of a long campaign to maintain their cultural separateness from certain nearby Aboriginal groups, and were therefore better equipped to continue their fight for autonomy when the white invasion came upon them. Such cultural barriers seemed strongest towards groups to the south. On the other hand, it is known that Bundjalung people were among the tribes or clans that made trips to the Bunya Mountains in Queensland every few years when the bunya pines bore heavily. In these seasons the owners of that territory invited others to a great time of feasting, from which, early white records tell us, the people of the Northern Rivers area of New South Wales returned looking sleek and well nourished. Cultural barriers to the south and inland, however, were not impenetrable: there is a Bundjalung song about travelling down the main road through New England to the Moonbis; and another Bundjalung song, about the Dunoon ‘boxer’ and playing two-up, was recorded down the south coast of New South Wales, where it had presumably been transmitted or traded. It would help in understanding the cultural ties and barriers if we could be certain of the route Bundjalung people followed to the Bunya Mountains (that is, was it a coastal route, or was it inland west of the Brisbane tribe?), and of the route this gambler’s song took in its transmission to the south coast. While (as Calley 1959 points out) we cannot assume that cultural barriers and alliances were immutable over time, both these songs were post-contact songs, possibly not dating back beyond this century, and so alliances and barriers probably differed little from those we have recorded.

SOME FEATURES OF BUNDJALUNG

As has already been mentioned, Bundjalung is unusual in its survival in a relatively densely settled area of Australia. Apart from that, there are some features of the language itself which are not typical of Australian languages.

In pronunciation, Bundjalung is more similar to English in the way in which stressed syllables are pronounced with considerable prominence and unstressed syllables markedly reduced or ‘slurred’. Most Australian Aboriginal languages do not show this kind of stress-timed rhythm. Bundjalung is also unusual — though not unique — in the way in which plosive consonants, such as b and g, may be pronounced as fricative sounds, similar to English v and h. (More precisely, Bundjalung here resembles Spanish, in which plosives like b and g may be pronounced as fricatives [β] and [γ] in certain positions.)

In its grammar, Bundjalung is unusual among Pama-Nyungan languages in its gender system. The language distinguishes four genders: masculine, feminine, arboreal (for trees) and neuter (for anything else). In at least some of the dialects, adjectives carried a suffix showing agreement with the gender of the noun. Note in the following examples how the adjective gama(y) ‘big’ takes different suffixes depending on the gender of the preceding noun:

baygal man ‘big man’	gamaygali big (masc)
dubay woman ‘big woman’	gamaynyahgan big (fem)
jali tree ‘big tree’	gamaynyahn big (arbor)
balun river ‘big river’	gamagay big (neuter)

The masculine/feminine distinction can also be seen in the words for ‘she’ (nyahngan or nyulagan, depending on the dialect) and ‘he’ (nyula, nyule or nyuuli, depending on the dialect). Most Pama-Nyungan languages make no distinction between pronouns ‘he’ and ‘she’.

Bundjalung has the ergative case marking that is typical of Pama-Nyungan languages (with a suffix to mark the agent of transitive verbs such as ‘see’, ‘hit’, ‘bite’, and so on). Less typically, Bundjalung also has an accusative suffix on some nouns to mark the goal or object of a transitive verb. This accusative marking seems to have applied to human nouns, nouns referring to larger animals and birds, and to pronouns and demonstratives.

DIFFERENCES AMONG THE DIALECTS OF BUNDJALUNG

What are the differences among the dialects? It is reasonable to guess there were some global differences in quality of voice and style of delivery, which may well have interfered with intelligibility across dialects. Unfortunately, our recorded materials are not comprehensive enough to define these differences; but there were sufficient differences for some Kombumerri people to feel that a southern speaker, Michael Walker, did not sound like the speakers they remembered, although others could name relations he sounded like. Old written accounts indicate that some people had little difficulty in understanding different dialects (like McQuilty, who spoke the Lismore dialect fluently, see Rankin 1900), while others found problems (Bray 1899).

There are more specific differences in pronunciation, for example in the vowels in various words. Variation in the pronunciation of ‘he’ has already been mentioned: southern speakers seems to have said nyula, while northern speakers said either nyuuli or nyule. A similar difference is observable in the final vowel of other words such as gala (or gali or gale) meaning ‘this’.

A difference between western dialects (Gidhabal, Wahlubal, et cetera) and northern and eastern dialects (Yugambeh, Wiyabal, et cetera) is that the former sometimes have the vowel a where the latter have u. The word for ‘no’, for instance, is yagam in the west and yugam elsewhere.

In general, vocabulary differed among the dialects, as is common in Australia. The difference between minyang and nyang (‘what?’) has already been mentioned as the basis of the names of the Minyangbal and Nyangbal dialects. Crowley (1978) comments on quite substantial lexical differences between the original northernmost and southernmost dialects.

WHY DO PEOPLE LEARN BUNDJALUNG?

Bundjalung is going out of everyday use. Why then have people shown an interest in learning it?

In the first place, a sizeable number of Aboriginal people of Bundjalung ancestry want to know more about this part of their inheritance. Some of them remember the days when use of the language was strongly discouraged by white disfavour and by the perceptions of their older relatives that it was to their advantage to use English. Many people recently have come to the realisation that it should not be a thing of shame to use their old language. A groundswell of desire by many people worldwide to find their roots has also affected Aboriginal people as well as non-Aboriginal people. Now those who remember only snatches of the language want to revive it and learn more.

Secondly, many non-Aboriginal residents of the Northern Rivers area and the Gold Coast and southern Brisbane had and have a genuine interest in the language as one of the features of the area. There are many place names of recognisable form and meaning in Bundjalung — some traditional, a few bestowed in recent times. For such people also, there is far more scope to pursue this interest than in places where less is known of the old languages.

A third source of interest is in Victoria, where Eve Fesl from Monash University, whose ancestral affiliation is to Gabi Gabi, north of Bundjalung, wished to teach an Aboriginal language in Victorian schools to Koori (Aboriginal) children. She wanted to use a language that was known in some depth, which excluded Victorian languages. In her search for a language which was spoken in as similar an environment as possible to that of the Victorian languages, she ruled out well-known and widely spoken desert languages such as Pitjantjatjara, and chose Bundjalung as the most suitable. She also expressed the hope that this very choice might inspire Bundjalung people to take a greater interest in the survival of their language. Some years ago, from her initiative, a unit in Bundjalung was introduced at Associate Diploma level at Churchill College (now Monash University College, Gippsland).

ISSUES IN TEACHING A DISAPPEARING LANGUAGE

In teaching any language, decisions must be made about such matters as which dialects to cover, what materials to use, and so on. Decisions of this kind may be particularly difficult in the teaching of a language with no available large body of speakers.

The diversity of Bundjalung dialects has presented some challenge to teachers. When I taught a Bundjalung course in Lismore in 1977, we confined our interest to the Lismore dialect, Wiyabal. We had as helper the late Lyle Roberts Jnr, who spoke this dialect. In Armidale, when I taught some Bundjalung to external students attending residential schools for the Associate Diploma in Aboriginal Studies, the choice was less clear. The course was being offered outside the Bundjalung area to an Aboriginal group who knew little or nothing of traditional Aboriginal languages. But we had in the group two with Bundjalung ancestry — from different dialect areas. We had good information on both of these areas (Tabulam/Baryulgil and Beaudesert) and we used common vocabulary as far as possible.

In Queensland, after the first series of language afternoons in 1988, when some teaching was done in a southern Bundjalung dialect and some in the northern dialect of Yugambeh, the Kombumerri Aboriginal Corporation insisted that only their dialect be taught in future courses. Even this decision was not simple to implement. In fact, our information on this dialect is comparatively sketchy: only some 500 words are well attested, and some holes in the grammar cannot be filled. We decided to fill in the missing portions with material extrapolated from better known dialects. It is reasonably certain, for example, that Yugambeh had the same range of demonstratives as Gidhabal — where we had examples, they fitted the same pattern; so, gaps were filled from other dialects.

In Victoria, for the unit taught at Monash University College, Gippsland, the first choice was to continue to teach the dialect that had been taught at Lismore in 1977. But it was also agreed that if a Bundjalung speaker came to help, the teaching would have to adjust towards that speaker’s dialect.

So far as the material to be taught is concerned, it must be remembered that those who are learning Bundjalung today will not be blending into a community where the language is actively spoken, with the exception of a small minority of people at Woodenbong. If there is any community, they must make one themselves. A group like the Kombumerri Corporation is already a cohesive group, with extensive family ties, and some words and phrases that have been passed down. The choice as to how they will use the language is theirs. Will it be used for greetings and leave-takings, for complaining about weather (rain, heat, cold), for talking about traditional activities, for use in a bush setting, or for shopping? Will it be used primarily orally, or will some want to concentrate on written stories from earlier speakers? Will their learning be basically to sensitise themselves to their ancestral roots, to another way of viewing the world, or to the structures of traditional Aboriginal languages; or will they want to have an in-group language to talk about private matters, or to mark their own group? There is reasonable flexibility to do any of these things. Bundjalung has survived long enough to incorporate words and expressions so that its users can talk about non-traditional artefacts (for example, lights, cars, glasses, tea, butter, grog and money). But to be realistic, it is unlikely that Bundjalung will take over functions which English already performs well for them.

The question of what weight to give to spoken language or written forms is also important. We all learn to listen and speak before we read or write, of course, and in any language course I teach I insist on a spoken input. After perhaps some initial mood-setting music, I often have a session I call ‘language wash’, where I (or someone else) say a number of sentences. After that I get the group to repeat many of these as best they can, concentrating on fluency and intonation, even if some sounds are wrongly pronounced. Somewhere in the process I attach translations to some of the phrases, and at some stage (but not initially) I provide written transcripts. At the end of the session it is also advisable to have another ‘language wash’, with students listening, not viewing their printed sheets. Students can practise hearing the words and phrases in their heads, using the written form to remind them, rather than thinking of only reading them.

The written mode is also important. Some worksheets can be designed where words must be matched with pictures, again reinforcing the association of objects and actions with Bundjalung words.

There are also a good number of Bundjalung texts in various dialects which have been transcribed from spoken originals. These texts give an insight into fluent discourse, in a way that is now impossible to do with live speakers. The texts also illustrate differences from dialect to dialect, and they contain samples of humour, cultural customs, accounts of recent happenings, and traditional stories.

Ideally, of course, the role model in teaching should be a fluent native speaker of the language and dialect being taught, but in the case of Bundjalung this is becoming an increasingly difficult requirement to meet. In addition, so much of what we have in recorded material in the language (on tape and cassette tape) was recorded under poor conditions with background noise, flies buzzing near the microphone at times, bird calls, and interruptions and asides, mostly in English.

I have, with some reluctance, used my own speech as role model, and would expect that another teacher-learner of the language would do the same. I also remind learners that they are a new Bundjalung group, and it will be up to them to set their own norms and become their own role models. If they gain reasonable fluency, even with ‘defective’ pronunciation, they will, after a little tuning in on both sides, be able to understand and communicate with native speakers. My aim in courses I teach is to build up fluency, even if the repertoire is small. With that fluency, which also helps to internalise structural patterns of the language, the learners have a chance of extending their knowledge more efficiently than if they needed to construct what they said or wrote word by word or with frequent checking of dictionary and grammar book.

Transcribed texts must also serve as role models, especially for more advanced knowledge. A few of the post-contact songs which have been fully transcribed provide a model, which helps to reinforce grammar and vocabulary.

A further question is how much colloquial detail to cover. Different groups among the Bundjalung people have developed different greeting and leavetaking phrases. Almost certainly many of these were not traditional, but have been modelled on English greetings and leave-takings. Examples are: bugalbeh (literally ‘good indeed’) in Gidhabal; gi gala wahlu (‘how doing you’) in Baryulgil. If we can extrapolate from other Aboriginal communities where the language is reasonably viable, we can assume that verbal greeting or acknowledgement of an arrival or imminent departure was not always required. When there was a verbal exchange, sentences such as ‘you have come’, ‘where have you come from?’, ‘where are you going?’, ‘I’m going’, ‘off you go’, were far more common.

Geytenbeek (1971) includes some colloquial and idiomatic expressions which are also given in Sharpe et al (1988, 17-19). I find it useful to show such a list to students quite early in their learning. They should not be expected to memorise them, but they illustrate the imaginative thinking of speakers of another language. What description beats jalayn giyuhmbiyn (throat [is] sandstone) for a sore throat? Or nyuladhah (he-very) for self-important? Students should be encouraged to pick out and use phrases that appeal to them or are pertinent for describing situations and friends significant to them.

One other matter that should be considered is the place of Aboriginal English. One form of Aboriginal English is Baryulgil Square Talk (Fraser-Knowles 1985), which takes its name from the settlement known as The Square. It includes words and phrases from Bundjalung (for example, gi gaLa wuja,‘how are you?’; that’s anyahz, ‘that’s mine’), Aussie-English contractions of these (for example, nyagz, from nyaguh ‘money’), and strongly variant forms of English which are sometimes modelled on Bundjalung constructions (for example, mal got me, ‘I’m hungry’; shordi-gandi got me, ‘I’m puffed’).

CONCLUSION

Many of the general issues discussed in this chapter apply to the learning of any language. However, there are special problems — and sometimes opportunities — in the teaching or learning of a language which is going out of use. There is, I feel, much to be gained from studying a language such as Bundjalung, in what it reveals about traditional Aboriginal language patterns, and about traditional lifestyles in what was and still is a fertile and densely populated rural area of Australia, where issues of land tenure and preservation of sacred mythological sites are very much alive. The relatively extensive information we have on the language and culture of this area make such study a worthwhile exercise, despite the lack of native speakers as teachers.

FOR DISCUSSION

1. Babies have language washing over them for perhaps over a year (including time in the womb) before they start using any. What does this suggest about how we should teach languages?
2. Spoken language is not primarily linked to marks on paper; it is linked with gesture and body language, intonation and voice quality. If we don’t have information on these things in a disappearing or dead language, what choices should we make?
3. If you were given the task of designing a course to sensitise people in your district to Aboriginal languages, what choices would you make of language and technique of teaching/learning, and why?

REFERENCES

Allen, J. and J. Lane
1913	Grammar, Vocabulary, and Notes of the Wangerriburra Tribe, Queensland Parliamentary Papers 3, 1034-51. In Annual Report of the Chief Protector of Aborigines for the Year 1913, Brisbane, 22-34.
	On the Yugambeh dialect. John Allen was a native speaker; however, he had not used the language actively for some 40-60 years when this was written.
Bray, J.
1899	On Dialects and Place Names, Science 21 November.
	An article quoting Bray and others, comments (mainly negative) on Aborigines, and short word list.
Calley, M.J.C.
1960	Bandjalang Social Organisation, PhD thesis, University of Sydney.
Crowley, T.
1978	The Middle Clarence Dialects of Bandjalang, Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra.
	A detailed grammar of the Wahlubal/Wehlubal dialects of Tabulam and Baryulgil. It includes as an appendix Smythe’s grammar of Bundjalung.
Cunningham, M.C.
1969	A Description of the Yugumbir Dialect of Bandjalang, University of Queensland Arts Series 1, 8, 69-122.
	A description of the Beaudesert dialect.
Curr, E.M.
1886-87	The Australian Race: Its Origin, Languages, Customs, Place of Landing in Australia, and the Routes by Which it Spread Itself over the Continent, 4 vols, J. Ferres, Government Printer, Melbourne.
Fraser-Knowles, J.
1985	A New Bundjalung Language: Baryulgil Square Talk. In M.C. Sharpe et al 1988, 174-201.
	A description of the Bundjalung-laced English of the Baryulgil people.
Geytenbeek, B. and H. Geytenbeek
1971	Gidabal Grammar and Dictionary, Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra.
	A detailed grammar of the Gidhabal dialect of Bundjalung, spoken around Woodenbong.
Holmer, N.M.
1971	Notes on the Bandjalang Dialect: Spoken at Coraki and Bungawalbin Creek, New South Wales, Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra.
	Grammar, texts and vocabulary of Wiyabal/Wuyehbal, but note Holmer does not consistently mark vowel length.
1983	Linguistic Survey of South-Eastern Queensland, Pacific Linguistics, D-54, Canberra.
	This covers material in neighbouring languages to Bundjalung, as well as the Yugambeh dialect.
Rankin, T.
1900	Aboriginal Place Names and Other Words, with Their Meaning, Peculiar to the Richmond and Tweed River Districts, Science 22 September 1900, 132-34.
	Rankin was a district surveyor. Word list with pronunciation guide.
Sharpe, M.C. et al
1985	An Introduction to the Bundjalung Language and Its Dialects (revised), ACAE Publications, Armidale.
	A relatively non-technical description of the language and its dialectal variants. Includes a chapter on Baryulgil Square Talk, the distinctive Bundjalung-laced English in domestic use among Baryulgil people.
Sharpe, M.C.
1991	A Bundjalung Language Course, prepared for Monash University College, Gippsland.
Sharpe, M.C. (ed)
1992	Dictionary of Western Bundjalung, including Gidhabal and Tabulam Bundjalung, Margaret Sharpe, University of New England, Armidale.
Smythe, W.E.
1978	[c 1942 or 1948] Bandjalang Grammar. In Terry Crowley 1978, 247-478.