Ritharngu, Dhuwal, and Dharlwangu back to Australian languages
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These are a few of the languages of the Yuulngu (Yolngu, Yolŋu) subgroup of Pama-Nyungan languages. The population speaking Yuulngu languages previously called “Murngin” by anthropologists. Yuulngu languages form a single geographic cluster in northeastern Arnhem Land (AL). They are well separated geographically from the other PN languages by a belt of non-PN languages ranging from Nunggubuyu in coastal eastern AL to Burarra in central northern coastal AL. Yuulngu is internally a complex dialect chain and it is not always clear which dialects constitute a single language. However, Ritharngu is quite distinct from the other varieties.
The most obvious structural difference between Yuulngu and the non-PN languages that I worked on is the absence of inflectional prefixes on nouns and verbs (noun-class prefixes on nouns, pronominal-prefix combinations on verbs). I studied these languages opportunistically with stray native speakers while at Numbulwar and occasionally at Ngukurr in the early to mid 1970s. Especially Ritharngu is in close contact with non-PN languages, including Ngandi and to some extent Nunggubuyu, and it played an important role in my work on linguistic diffusion. Of the three languages, I did the most systematic work on Ritharngu, followed by Dhuwal, and only brief unpublished work on Dharlwangu (Dharlwangu).
Publications are listed below. The two short articles on Ritharngu add nothing in particular to what’s in the grammar. For Dhuwal see also the “kinship” section.
Ritharngu
book
1980d Basic materials in Ritharngu: Grammar, texts, and dictionary. Pacific Linguistics B‑62. Canberra: Australian National University.
DOI: 10.15144/PL-B62
http://sealang.net/archives/pl/ (search for author = Heath, or title = Basic materials in R)
articles
1976h The derivational suffix 'having': Ritharngu. In: R. M. W. Dixon, ed., Grammatical categories in Australian languages, 285‑87. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.
1976j The bivalent suffix ‑ku: Nunggubuyu and Ritharngu. In: R. M. W. Dixon, ed., Grammatical categories in Australian languages, 444‑50. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.
Dhuwal
book
1980a Dhuwal (Arnhem Land) texts on kinship and other subjects, with grammatical sketch and dictionary. (Oceania Linguistic Monographs, 23.) Sydney: Univ. of Sydney.
http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/117643
http://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-001M-0000-001A-292A-C
Dharlwangu (Dhalwangu), part of Dhay’yi subgroup of Yuulngu
I never got very far with this language but I attempted to transcribe and annotate a few texts. “Dhayyi (Dharlwangu) texts and vocabulary” is archived as AIATSIS catalog PMS 3296. It includes secret-sacred material and cannot be made public.
Djarrayang Wunungmurra has a Dhalwangu dictionary (AIATSIS catalog no. AILEC 0502). For additional works containing texts on these languages, see the AIATSIS catalog.
AIATSIS catalog:
http://catalogue.aiatsis.gov.au/client/en_AU/external
[last update Nov 2017]