Talk:Dyirbal language

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 8 September 2020 and 18 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Duncan1999.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 19:56, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

i have read that there are different words for maternal and paternal uncles and even,elder and younger brothers of mother.İs it correct? 31.223.8.146 (talk) 12:45, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

Untitled

I couldn't remember that Dyirbal was tonal - can we have some more information on this aspect please? — Hippietrail 15:55, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Not Tonal

R.M.W. Dixon's _The Dyirbal Language of North Queensland_ makes no mention at all of tonality in Dyirbal. Stress is systematically added and dropped, however, and I am working on an update to include this.

• I have removed the claim that the language is tonal. Anatole V. Lyovin's An Introduction to the Languages of the World says of Dyirbal: "Stress is generally placed on the first syllable of a word and all subsequent odd-numbered syllables except the last. There are several complications with stress, but they are not dealt with here." I have also mentioned this in the phonology section. — Ливай | ☺ 23:53, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

More information?

My knowledge of this language is fairly extensive and I'd be willing to write about any topic in which people are interested. I'm thinking about preparing some examples demonstrating the syntactic ergativity of Dyirbal already, so I'm looking for other aspects of the language to clarify.

• I believe Dyirbal examples were used extensively in Van Valin's Role and Reference Grammar (to basically blow holes in Chomsky's Transformational Grammar)... From what I remember, Dyirbal adjectives and determiners can be syntactically seperated from their head noun (while retaining morphological markers), which transformational grammars can't easily accomodate.... maybe add some examples of this? Exit 17:46, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Hey man: to the guy above who has extensive knowledge of the language, I am interested in knowing MUCH more about Dyirbal than what we have here. If you read this, I'd encourage you to pour your heart and all your knowledge into this article. I would say to you, give a fairly in depth overview of every aspect of the language. One of my favorite language articles in Wikipedia is the one on the Ubykh language. It's very in-depth and informative and gives tons of examples of many of Ubykh's most interesting features. As far as I'm concerned, you don't need an invitation to knock yourself writing about this language. I'd encourage you to do so. I couldn't tell you what aspects to focus on because I know nothing about Dyirbal, and not much about langauges in general. And I think given that Dyirbal has 5 speakers and is probably at death's door, all the more reason to give this langauge it's swan song, it's last hurrah--the honor it deserves. I say to you, make this into a feature article or die trying. --Colin.65.102.39.98 23:40, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Hey man: to both guys above. 2nd guy--Did you ever find the Dyirbal information that you needed?

1st guy (dyirbal expert) I would be interested in learning more about the morphosyntactic structure of Dyirbal, have you written anything? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dldiv (talk • contribs) 21:54, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Noun classes

Some linguists distinguish between such systems of classification and the gendered division of items into the categories of "feminine", "masculine" and (sometimes) "neuter" that is found in, for example, many Indo-European languages.

Someone needs to elaborate on exactly what "such systems" are, because I don't see the difference. --Ptcamn 20:56, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

The difference is that Indo-European, Afro-Asiatic, etc. languages typically have systems of only two genders, or of two genders plus genderless/neuter (the latter sometimes being considered a system of three genders); when there are more than three noun classes, or when there's no clear masculine noun class and clear feminine noun class, the term gender is sometimes avoided. Ruakh 02:22, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Wait so ... because they have a food noun category, we're not going to use the term gender? Because the rest of it looks identical to every other he/she/it language. And there are loads of examples on the Grammatical Gender page of languages with more than three, e.g. making distinction between animate and inanimate. So why not food/not food? Seems like just another category (gender, genre, genus), can't see how it's different to the other gendered languages. Waylah (talk) 23:46, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Non-synonymous clarification

In the last paragraph of the grammar section, it says, "Sentences with a first or second person pronoun have their verb arguments marked for case in a pattern that mimics nominative-accusative languages. That is, the first or second person pronoun appears in the least marked case when it is the subject (regardless of the transitivity of the verb), and in the most marked case when it is the direct object." The problem is, these two sentences, despite the "that is" that leads off the second, are not synonymous. For example, in translating "I see him", the first sentence suggests that "I" and "him" should be in different cases ("I" in the less-marked nominative case, "him" in the more-marked accusative one), but the second one suggests that they should be in the same case ("I" in the less-marked nominative case, "him" in the less-marked absolutive case). Which sentence is correct? Ruakh 02:22, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Orthography vs. phonology?

"Standard orthography uses voiced consonants, which seem to be preferred by speakers of most Australian languages since the sounds (which can often be semi-voiced) are closer to English semi-voiced b, d, g than aspirated p, t, k."

Could someone cite this? I was told that Dyirbal is noted for having only voiced stops, which is particularly interesting, because when languages don't distinguish voicing, they are most likely to have voiceless stops. Is this orthographic convention really preferred, or is the writer just assuming so from a background of speaking English? --Ryan 18:39, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Consonant inventory

@Fdom5997: Hello, I saw that you added retroflex consonants to the consonant table, citing Dixon (1972). But the source states multiple times that Dyirbal lacks retroflex stop-nasal series otherwise common in Australian languages, and that it has only one retroflex rhotic /ɻ/ (Dixon 1972:22,37,269-271). Therefore I am removing the non-phonemes /ʈ, ɳ, ɽ/ from the table. Ellpicre (talk) 00:34, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Ok thanks for correcting my mistake. Did not notice that part within the source. Fdom5997 (talk) 01:27, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Young Dyirbal

Hi, I'm editing this article as part of a class on endangered languages I am currently enrolled in, I do not plan on making too many large changes, but simply adding information. My research has not been super geared towards grammar as much as the social aspects, but I thought I would add a bit of info on Young Dyirbal (YD) as outlined by Annette Schmidt in her research. I also thought of possibly adding some points about the history of the language and its decline. I may also try to add other information I feel may be vital.

If anything I add is incorrect or cited improperly, do not hesitate to tell me why and feel free to edit it and provide the research against it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Duncan1999 (talk • contribs) 02:57, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

My Edits

I have added some points based on my research of the language, they are not too extensive and are largely incomplete. Please feel free to add to anything I have written, or if you have research going against my claims, please feel free to present it to me and change my information for being more accurate. All changes were copied from my sandbox and can be found there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Duncan1999 (talk • contribs) 17:24, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Problematic wording in opening paragrah

The phrase "In the years since the Dyirbal grammar by Robert Dixon was published in 1972, Dyirbal has steadily moved closer to extinction as younger community members have failed to learn it." Blames the community for the loss of their language. Language loss is complex and not the fault of a marginalised community. This needs to be rephrased. Thanks. 111.220.223.109 (talk) 00:08, 7 September 2024 (UTC)