Table Of ContentFelicity Meakins and Patrick McConvell
A Grammar of Gurindji
Mouton Grammar Library
Edited by
Georg Bossong
Bernard Comrie
Patience L. Epps
Irina Nikolaeva
Volume 91
Felicity Meakins and Patrick McConvell
A Grammar
of Gurindji
As spoken by Violet Wadrill, Ronnie Wavehill,
Dandy Danbayarri, Biddy Wavehill, Topsy Dodd Ngarnjal,
Long Johnny Kijngayarri, Banjo Ryan, Pincher Nyurrmiari
and Blanche Bulngari
The Gurindji knowledge in this book is the intellectual property of Gurindji people. This knowledge
should only be used with the written consent of the intellectual property owners and with proper
attribution.
ISBN 978-3-11-074683-9
e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-074688-4
e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-074694-5
ISSN 0933-7636
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021935856
Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie;
detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.
© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
© 2021 Gurindji language examples and sound files Karungkarni Art and
Culture Aboriginal Corporation
Typesetting: Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd.
Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck
www.degruyter.com
Kajijirri-wu marlurluka-wu
‘For the women and men who came before’
Preface
This grammar is based on the original sketch grammar produced by Patrick McCon-
vell in 1996. We have expanded this sketch significantly based on the Gurindji corpus
which now contains 75 hours of recordings collected since the 1970s. The original
recordings were made by Patrick McConvell with Johnny Kijngayarri, Nugget Jinpal,
Blanche Bulngari, Tommy Ngaliwin and Jimmy Manngayarri in the 1970s. In the
1980s, Helen and Norm McNair then worked with Dandy Danbayarri, Blanche Buln-
gari, Pincher Nyurrmiari and Horace Walman. Erika Charola contributed a s ignificant
narrative collection from work with Ronnie Wavehill Wirrpnga, Dandy Danbayarri,
Ida Malyik, Violet Wadrill, Molly Tupngali and Biddy Wavehill Yamawurr in the
1990s. Felicity Meakins continued the work with Violet Wadrill, Topsy Dodd Ngarnjal,
Biddy Wavehill Yamawurr, Banjo Ryan, Kitty Mintawurr, Teresa Yibwoin and Connie
Ngarrmaya in the 2000s. The nature of the corpus is described in detail in ‘Recording
Metadata’ section, and the history of its collection is detailed in individual sections
in §1.5.
The corpus has been utilised in many forms. It is the basis of the Gurindji to
English Dictionary (Meakins et al., 2013) and two significant text collections Yijarni:
True Stories from Gurindji Country and Mayarni-kari Yurrk: More Stories from Gurindji
Country (Charola & Meakins, 2016b, 2016c), and smaller books including Kawarla:
How to Make a Coolamon (Wadrill, Wavehill, & Meakins, 2015) and Karu: Growing up
Gurindji (Wadrill, Wavehill, Dodd, & Meakins, 2019). Many church and school picture
books were also produced by Helen and Norm McNair. An ethnobiology of Bilinarra,
Gurindji and Malngin was compiled with Gurindji elders and ethnobiologist Glenn
Wightman (Hector et al., 2012). This ethnobiology provided the basis of a set of four
posters on fish, birds, bush medicines and foods which were created with the Murn-
kurrumurnkurru ranger group. Finally, a series of procedural videos about bush med-
icines and foods was produced by Felicity Meakins with Violet Wadrill, Topsy Dodd
Ngarnjal and Biddy Wavehill Yamawurr. A second set of 15 short sign language videos
and 4 posters were produced by Jenny Green, Cassandra Algy and Felicity Meakins.
If you are reading the epub, just click on the symbol next to the example to hear
the sound file, if you are reading the ebook (pdf) or the hard copy, the sound files can
be accessed at https://www.degruyter.com/document/isbn/9783110746884/html. The
password is Gurindji1966.
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110746884-202
Acknowledgements
Our first and foremost thanks goes to the Gurindji knowledge custodians who showed
patience working with us over the years as we captured the nuances of their lan-
guage. We extend our particular thanks to Johnny Kijngayarri, Nugget Jinpal, Blanche
Bulngari, Pincher Nyurrmiari and Jimmy Manngayarri (Patrick); and Violet Wadrill,
Topsy Dodd Ngarnjal and Biddy Wavehill Yamawurr (Felicity). We are also extremely
grateful to Helen McNair, Norm McNair, Erika Charola and Lauren Campbell; and the
Gurindji families they worked with who generously shared their recordings. We par-
ticularly acknowledge the families of Dandy Danbayarri, Blanche Bulngari, Pincher
Nyurrmiari and Ronnie Wavehill Wirrpnga who have since passed away. We hope that
this grammar is just one way that their knowledge will be passed onto the next gen-
eration.
In another and better world, these elders would have been the professors at uni-
versities. Some elders were remarkable orators and philosophers, particularly Ronnie
Wavehill, Dandy Danbayarri, Pincher Nyurrmiari, Jimmy Manngayarri, Blanche Bul-
ngari and Banjo Ryan. Others were teachers and linguists in their own right, in par-
ticular Violet Wadrill and Ronnie Wavehill. To your families: it was an extraordinary
privilege and honour working with your old people and we only hope that we have
done justice to their exceptional minds. This grammar is simply our interpretation of
your language, but the Gurindji language remains yours and the community’s intel-
lectual achievement.
This grammar has also benefited from many conversations over the years with
other linguists working on Australian languages. This community has developed over
the years as an incredibly generous and welcoming place for conversations. Particular
thanks to our Ngumpin-Yapa colleagues: Erika Charola, C aroline Jones, Mary Laugh-
ren, David Nash, Carmel O’Shannessy, Jane Simpson and Tasaku Tsunoda; and the
most recent group of Ngumpin-Yapa-ists emerging from the University of Queensland
over the last 10 years: Jackie van den Bos, Mitch Browne, Vivien Dunn, Tom Ennever,
Amanda Hamilton-Hollaway, David Osgarby, Bodean Sloan and Sasha Wilmoth.
More broadly many thanks to Brett Baker, Joe Blythe, Samantha Disbray, Nick Evans,
Alice Gaby, Jenny Green, Mark Harvey, Harold Koch, John Mansfield, Bill McGregor,
Ilana Mushin, Rachel Nordlinger, Rob Pensalfini, Erich Round, Nick Thieberger, Ruth
Singer, Eva Schultze-Berndt, Myf Turpin and Jean-Christophe Verstraete.
We are also grateful to a number of organisations and funding bodies. Patrick
McConvell’s work has been largely supported by the Australian Institute of Aborig-
inal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS). Erika Charola, Felicity Meakins
and Lauren Campbell’s work was supported by Diwurruwurru-jaru Aboriginal
Corporation (DAC) or Katherine Regional Aboriginal Language Centre, which was
instrumental in supporting the documentation, maintenance and revitalisation of
Aboriginal languages in the Katherine region from 1991 to 2009. Its closure in 2009 left a
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110746884-203
X Acknowledgements
significant gap in language services at a critical time for these languages. Patrick
McConvell, Erika Charola and Felicity Meakins’ subsequent work was supported by
a DOBES grant (Jaminjungan and Eastern Ngumpin Documentation project 2007–2010,
C.I. Eva Schultze-Berndt) which was administered by the University of Manchester
(UK). Felicity Meakins’ work was also supported by an ELDP grant (The Documenta-
tion of Gurindji Kriol, an Australian Mixed Language 2008–2011, IPF0134, C.I. Meakins)
which was also administered by the University of Manchester (UK) and the Australian
Research Council grant (Something old, something new: Indigenous languages since
colonisation, 2018–2022, FT170100042, C.I. Meakins). Additional support has come
from Penny Smith at Karungkarni Arts. The establishment of Karungkarni Arts in 2010
has seen a renaissance of Gurindji artistic and cultural expression which we have
been privileged to be a part of.
Thanks to Brenda Thornley for her beautiful cartography work through the
grammar. Thanks also to the people who shared their photographs: Brenda L Croft,
Jennifer Green, Darrell Lewis, Glenn Wightman and Penny Smith. Many thanks to
Charles Darwin University Library, National Library of Australia, NAA, South Aus-
tralia Museum, Berndt Museum, Minoru Hokari’s family and Brian Manning’s family
for permission to use the archive photos in Chapter One. Many thanks to Bernard
Comrie for his close reading and comments on the manuscript as editor. Finally, an
enormous thanks to Paul Williams who undertook much of the grunt work for the
grammar with the energy and enthusiasm required to speed this project to comple-
tion. Paul formatted example sentences, extracted sound clips for these sentences
(with a sharp ear!), created the appendices and index, and copyedited the manuscript.
