Australian Languages
Australian Languages

Author: Claire Bowern

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2004-03-18

Total Pages: 704

ISBN-13: 9027295115

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This book addresses controversial issues in the application of the comparative method to the languages of Australia which have recently come to international prominence. Are these languages ‘different’ in ways that challenge the fundamental assumptions of historical linguistics? Can subgrouping be successfully undertaken using the Comparative Method? Is the genetic construct of a far-flung ‘Pama-Nyungan’ language family supportable by classic methods of reconstruction? Contrary to increasingly established views of the Australian scene, this book makes a major contribution to the demonstration that traditional methods can indeed be applied to these languages. These studies, introduced by chapters on subgrouping methodology and the history of Australian linguistic classification, rigorously apply the comparative method to establishing subgroups among Australian languages and justifying the phonology of Proto-Pama-Nyungan. Individual chapters can profitably be read either for their contribution to Australian linguistic prehistory or as case studies in the application of the comparative method.

The Dragon's Treasure
The Dragon's Treasure

Author: Mark Greenwood

Publisher: Fremantle Press

Published: 2024-07-02

Total Pages: 70

ISBN-13: 1760993956

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On a summer morning in 1931, four children on a remote beach make a remarkable discovery. But this is only one of many astonishing finds in the same area: silver coins, hidden chests, mysterious stones, strange objects and an unidentified skeleton. Why is it all there? Where has it come from? Can the truth be found? Join the History Hunter to unravel the marvellous mystery in The Dragon' s Treasure.

The Languages and Linguistics of Australia
The Languages and Linguistics of Australia

Author: Harold Koch

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2014-08-19

Total Pages: 523

ISBN-13: 3110279770

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The Languages and Linguistics of Australia: A Comprehensive Guide is part of the multi-volume reference work on the languages and linguistics of the continents of the world. The volume provides a thorough overview of Australian languages, including their linguistic structures, their genetic relationships, and issues of language maintenance and revitalisation. Australian English, Aboriginal English and other contact varieties are also discussed.

Australia and the Origins of Agriculture
Australia and the Origins of Agriculture

Author: Rupert Gerritsen

Publisher: BAR International Series

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13:

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In this work the author explores issues of the origin of agriculture in Australia such as the "failure" of agriculture to develop indigenously, and its "failure" to diffuse into Australia, despite contact with Indonesian (Macassan) agriculturalists or New Guinean horticulturalists. Although not always explicitly stated or recognised, significant differences probably exist in the factors and dynamics that led to the pristine development of agriculture, as opposed to agriculture that arose as a result of outside influences, as a result of cultural transfers. In addition, a further question is investigated relating to the concept of Complex Hunter-Gatherers and the validity of some of the frameworks, key arguments, and critical evidence, that have been put forward concerning the development of agriculture, animal husbandry and Complex Hunter-Gatherer economies. A corollary of certain additional factors also explored, such as British colonisation, is the recognition that particular geographic, environmental, climatic, demographic and cultural factors, either singly or in concert, must have affected development in this continent.

Nhanda
Nhanda

Author: Juliette Blevins

Publisher: University of Hawaii Press

Published: 2001-07-31

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 9780824823757

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This book presents the first detailed sketch grammar of Nhanda, a Pama-Nyungan language of the central coast of Western Australia presently on the verge of extinction. This language was once spoken along the lower Murchison River, from Kalbarri inland, and south to present-day Northampton and Geraldton, but has remained largely unknown until recent years. Nhanda is based on the author's fieldwork in Western Australia from 1993 to 1998 with one of the last speakers of the language, and also incorporates notes of early explorers and linguists who passed through the area. The grammar presents the general features of the language within the Australian context, followed by a comprehensive study of Nhanda sound patterns, major sections on nominal and verbal morphology, and descriptions of simple sentences and constituent order. Each chapter is rich in data and provides comparative evidence with important implications for historical relationships between the languages of Australia. The volume also includes Nhanda-English and English-Nhanda alphabetical vocabularies and an alphabetical list of Nhanda affixes.

Imagined Australia
Imagined Australia

Author: Renata Summo-O'Connell

Publisher: Peter Lang

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 416

ISBN-13: 9783034300087

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From Terra Nullius to Land of Opportunities and Last Frontier, the European dream has constructed and deconstructed Australia to feed its imagination of new societies. At the same time Australia has over the last two centuries forged and re-invented its own liaisons with Europe arguably to carve out its identity. From the arts to social sciences, to society itself, a complex dynamic has grown between the two continents in ways that invite study and discussion. A transnational research group has begun its collective investigation project of which this first volume is the outcome. The book is a substantial multidisciplinary collection of current research and offers critical perspectives on culture, literature and history around themes at the heart of the Imagined Australia project. The essays instigate reflection, discovery and discussion of how reciprocal imagining between Australia and Europe has articulated itself and ways and dimensions in which a relationship between communities, imagined and not, has unfolded.

A Salvage Grammar of Malgana, the Language of Shark Bay, Western Australia
A Salvage Grammar of Malgana, the Language of Shark Bay, Western Australia

Author: Andrew D. Gargett

Publisher: Pacific Linguistics College of Asia and Pacific the Australian National University

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 118

ISBN-13:

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There are no longer any speakers of the West Australian Aboriginal language Malgana who have any degree of fluency, and the series of analyses in this report are based on data from audio tapes made in the middle of the last decade of the 20th century, as well as various written materials produced over more than 150 years. This grammar is therefore an attempt to salvage from the scarce material available as complete a description of Malgana as possible. Nevertheless, the character of Malgana shines through what remains. For example, typical of Pama-Nyungan languages in general, Malgana exhibits split-ergative nominal marking, and of Aboriginal languages of the central West of Australia in particular, Malgana displays a full contrastive laminal series of stops in its phonology. A conscious effort has been made to provide in this grammar as many resources as possible for the researcher interested in comparative study of the surrounding languages. To this end, a (Malgana-based) comparative wordlist has been constructed for the languages of the region centring on the Murchison River: Malgana, Nhanda, Badimaya, Wajarri, and (Southern and Northern) Yingkarta.