The Oxford Guide to Australian Languages

doi:10.1093/oso/9780198824978.001.0001

2023

DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198824978.001.0001

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The Oxford Guide to Australian Languages

Abstract: The Oxford Guide to Australian languages is a wide-ranging reference work that provides information about the more than 550 traditional and new Indigenous languages of Australia. There are chapters covering phonology, morphology, and syntax; language change, typology, and language classification, and language in the social sphere, including sociolinguistics and language variation, child-directed speech, and multilingualism. It describes the contemporary linguistic landscape, including language endangerment and… Show more

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Cited by 3 publications

References 395 publications

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Recognising Yarrie Lingo, the creole language of Yarrabah community in far north-eastern Queensland Australia

Yeatman,

Angelo

2023

JPCL

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Yarrie Lingo is the local name for the English-lexified creole language spoken in the Aboriginal community of Yarrabah in far north-eastern Queensland, Australia. This creole has only recently been gaining recognition but it is the main language of everyday interactions in Yarrabah. This study describes the recognitional trajectory of Yarrie Lingo and what has fostered this language awareness. With a focus on the experiences of the local Aboriginal educator, language activist and researcher, Bernadine Yeatman, we showcase a range of grounded methodologies, including devices like language posters, interviews and illustrative stories, along with maps, timelines and cartoons developed in conjunction with a linguist, Denise Angelo. This shines a light onto the practical ‘how to’ of language awareness for under-recognised language communities and the potential support a linguist can provide. It exemplifies a research approach which engages linguistic knowledge with local language expertise to co-design materials for community members, educators and service providers.

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Recognising Yarrie Lingo, the creole language of Yarrabah community in far north-eastern Queensland Australia

Yeatman,

Angelo

2023

JPCL

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Indigenous Language Ecologies framework

Angelo

2024

JPCL

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Linguistic research with Indigenous communities over several decades has shown that Indigenous contact languages have a large presence in the contemporary Indigenous landscapes of Australia, but this is not reflected in an equitable presence in policy or programs. Policy has not taken up or responded to the available language research and recommendations, nor is policy reliably informed by solid government language data. As a response to such issues, the Indigenous Language Ecologies framework has been developed. It is designed as a tool to assist policy makers to see and include the needs of contact language-speaking communities. The simple framework differentiates the main configurations of multilingualism in Indigenous communities in Australia today, comparing and contrasting the typical repertoires of speakers of contact languages, of Englishes and of traditional languages. It is intended to function as a useful heuristic and, as such, represents an example of translational research where specialist linguistic knowledge has been distilled for a non-specialist policy audience. The paper lays out the rationale for, and design of, this language ecologies approach, and its impact on policy and research to date.

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Evolution and Trade-Off Dynamics of Functional Load

Round

Dockum

Ryder

2022

Entropy

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Functional load (FL) quantifies the contributions by phonological contrasts to distinctions made across the lexicon. Previous research has linked particularly low values of FL to sound change. Here, we broaden the scope of enquiry into FL to its evolution at higher values also. We apply phylogenetic methods to examine the diachronic evolution of FL across 90 languages of the Pama–Nyungan (PN) family of Australia. We find a high degree of phylogenetic signal in FL, indicating that FL values covary closely with genealogical structure across the family. Though phylogenetic signals have been reported for phonological structures, such as phonotactics, their detection in measures of phonological function is novel. We also find a significant, negative correlation between the FL of vowel length and of the following consonant—that is, a time-depth historical trade-off dynamic, which we relate to known allophony in modern PN languages and compensatory sound changes in their past. The findings reveal a historical dynamic, similar to transphonologization, which we characterize as a flow of contrastiveness between subsystems of the phonology. Recurring across a language family that spans a whole continent and many millennia of time depth, our findings provide one of the most compelling examples yet of Sapir’s ‘drift’ hypothesis of non-accidental parallel development in historically related languages.

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The Oxford Guide to Australian Languages

Cited by 3 publications

References 395 publications

Recognising Yarrie Lingo, the creole language of Yarrabah community in far north-eastern Queensland Australia

Recognising Yarrie Lingo, the creole language of Yarrabah community in far north-eastern Queensland Australia

Indigenous Language Ecologies framework

Evolution and Trade-Off Dynamics of Functional Load

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