Gurrangay Matha Language Project
The purpose of this project is to save the Gurraŋay Matha (academic language of the Yolŋu Matha clan groups of central and north east Arnhem Land). Gurraŋay Matha is an extremely important educational resource that has been used by Yolŋu for thousands of years to record and store academic knowledge and intangible concepts covering the areas of health, anatomy, economics, commerce, law, theology, biology, zoology, the social sciences, ecology/ conservation and astronomy.
While Gurraŋay Matha has been regarded by some anthropologists and linguists as "the old ceremonial" language; it is our understanding from many discussions held with senior clan leaders that Gurraŋay Matha constitutes a whole language in its own right and indeed encompasses the cognitive affective or academic language that is necessary to explain complex terms and concepts across a wide range of subject areas still relevant to Yolŋu today.
Within the English language there are different levels of language that are used in a scientific or technical context, for instance in the areas of economics, law or medicine. The English words and terms used in these contexts can convey whole concepts and are essential to contextualise the speciality in question. Gurraŋay Matha fulfils the same role within the Yolŋu Matha languages.
Coming under the Yolŋu Matha group of languages, each clan has its own repository of unique Gurraŋay Matha terms as well as some common terms that are shared throughout a larger number of clans. According to linguistic classifications of Yolŋu Matha there are 8 major language groupings namely Dhuwal, Dhuwala, Dhaŋu, Djaŋu, Dhay'yi, Nhaŋu, Djiniŋ and Djinaŋ which all the clan languages can be classified by. These names refer to the word that is used for “this”. e.g. Dhuwal pen (This pen; or this is a pen), dhuwala hat (this hat), dhaŋu house (this house) etc. Further to this there are a number of clan alliances (riŋgitj) that are political groupings of clans. These clan / nation groupings share a significant amount of technical and legal language in common. This is because each riŋgitj alliance has a common army and ownership of the sub-surface resources on each clan estate within the membership of the riŋgitj alliance.
Within each of these language groups Gurraŋay Matha is now only known by a few of the old people. Of great concern to those who are clan leaders is the fact that young people are no longer learning Gurraŋay Matha language terms. However, this endangered language provides the key to ensuring that Yolŋu have access to knowledge and information in their own language that will facilitate the understanding of contemporary information and concepts into the future.
ARDS believes that much of this academic level language is already extinct in many of the Aboriginal languages across Australia. With the extremely high deaths rates being experienced today by Yolŋu people, a very small window of opportunity exists to record Gurraŋay Matha with the few remaining speakers before they pass away, to guarantee it's survival into the future. Losing Gurraŋay Matha, the academic language will significantly impact on Yolŋu people's ability to participate in meaningful dialogue with both government and the wider Australian community in all facets of their daily lives. However, with support from ATSIS, our proposal can save the dying language of Gurraŋay Matha, greatly enhancing their ability to communicate with the dominant English culture, leading to true capacity building across the Miwatj region.
ARDS sees the recording of Gurraŋay Matha as a five to ten year project. ARDS major priority is to concentrate on recording material from the most senior and knowledgeable clan leaders within north east Arnhem Land, to ensure this information is captured before they are no longer with us. ARDS objective is to record and document as many Gurraŋay Matha terms as possible.
It must be recognised that analysing Gurraŋay Matha, the academic language, requires substantial discussion and testing to achieve accurate translations of these intangible concepts. This is in contrast to the translation of basic interpersonal communication skills (BICS) language, such as tree, hat, cup etc. (tangible words) that can be translated relatively easily
Some examples of reinstated Gurraŋay Matha words are provided below:
Wäyuk: a string of law – as in a statute of law eg. Act of Parliament. (The string consists of bush string with feathers of different colours woven along the string. The shape, size, colour and space of the different colours of feathers encode a particular legal language). While similar to an act of a Westminster Parliamentary System a Wäyuk is also different, in that it represents an act, an agreement between clans, alliances and other legal agreements, all passed through a traditional legal process. This string of law is constructed and debated in a Ngärra (traditional parliament) and assented to by all the clans involved using a ceremony called Wana Lupton.
Goŋ-lärrmirr: legal document (Wäyuk) that gives the owner legal and commercial rights to a particular resource eg. Rights to flint
stone material (as understood in the English word "company share/s").
Balanydja: the classification of a type of payment for goods and services rendered under contract
Goŋ-wukindi: unclean/ untouchable - after touching a dead person when preparing the body for burial -person cannot touch any food or even feed themselves until ritually cleansed.