Ngiyampaa Wordworld
Thipingku Yuwi, Maka Ngiya, Names of Birds and Other Words
The Wangaaypuwan dialect of Ngiyampaa is the language of the Pilaarrkiyalu, Nhiilyikiyalu and Karulkiyalu people that come from the dry, riverless country of Western NSW. Some people still live in and around the ngurrampaa ‘homelands’ but many now live in larger towns and cities around NSW and other states and territories.
Ngiyampaa Wordworld: Thipingku Yuwi, Maka Ngiya; Names of Birds and Other Words includes stories, example Sentences and songs. The second half of the dictionary is dedicated to bird names (and other words). The dictionary includes an English to Ngiyampaa finder list, which is also useful for looking up words in Ngiyampaa.
Ngiyampaa Wordworld is part of the AIATSIS Indigenous Language Preservation: Dictionaries Project.
Ngiyampaa Wordworld Indigenous language dictionary from AIATSIS on Vimeo.
Production Details
- Paperback
- 240mm x 170mm x 170mm
- 136pp
- Released June 2020
- ISBN 9781925302196
Contents
Second edition foreword
Maps: People, language and country
Chapter 1: Introduction and acknowledgements
Ngiyampaa sounds, writing and pronunciation
Abbreviations and conventions
Words included in the Ngiyampaa–English dictionary
Information included in dictionary entries
Ngiyampaa bound forms
Chapter 2: Texts
Chapter 3: Songs
Chapter 4: Example sentences
Chapter 5: Bound forms
Chapter 6: Bound forms finderlist
Chapter 7: Ngiyampaa–English dictionary
Chapter 8: English–Ngiyampaa finderlist
Bibliographic references
About The Author
Tamsin Donaldson was born in London in 1939 and grew up in England. She gained an MA in Modern Languages at the University of Oxford, and in 1969 moved with her Australian husband and two young children to Canberra, where she developed a strong interest in Australian languages and linguistics.
Tamsin’s long association with Ngiyampaa began in 1972, when she was first introduced to speakers of the language. In the years that followed, she spent much time with Ngiyampaa people in various parts of western New South Wales, particularly at Murrin Bridge, near Lake Cargelligo, learning and recording their language. She wrote a formal grammar of Ngiyampaa, for which she was awarded a PhD from the Australian National University. This was later published as Ngiyambaa: the Language of the Wangaaybuwan (1980).
Tamsin continued thereafter to work on projects and publications relating to Australian languages and Ngiyampaa in particular. She held various professional roles at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, ANU, University of Sydney, Batchelor Institute in the Northern Territory, and Cornell University in the United States.
She felt a deep attachment to the Ngiyampaa language and people and their efforts to preserve their language and culture, and would be delighted to know that Ngiyampaa Worldworld is being reprinted so that new generations of Ngiyampaa people will be able to use it. She was also very aware that her work was an echo of the work of her Cornish grandfather Robert Morton Nance, who was active in the revival of the Cornish language and compiled a Cornish-English dictionary.
Tamsin died in 2014.
About The Cover
Front cover artwork by Hunter Barnes.
Inside cover artwork by Janine Ohlsen.
Internal artwork by Nola Taylor.
Book Design and Production by Christine Bruderlin.