Re: Dyirbal?
| From: | Herman Miller <hmiller@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Friday, November 19, 2004, 5:34 |
|---|
Rodlox wrote:
> two questions -- where in Austronesia is/was Dyirbal spoken?
In northern Queensland, Australia.
> &, aside from
> Syntactic Ergativity, what other fun stuff does it and-or its language
> subfamily (its closer relations within the broad Austroneasian Family) have?
> *curious*
>
> ps: does it have a learn-the-grammar website?
>
> thanks.
>
I read a couple of books by R.M.W. Dixon back in the mid-1980's, one on
Dyirbal and a larger one on the related language Yidiny, but I don't
remember much about them beyond the ergativity. It was around that time
that I started adding ergative features to my own languages, such as
Kazvarad. Dyirbal is also known for its gender system, which gave the
title to George Lakoff's book _Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things_. It
basically has four genders, which might seem to be arbitrary but
actually had some semantic basis -- birds are feminine because they are
believed to be the spirits of women, for instance.
Replies