The Handbook of Australian Languages. Vol. 5: Grammatical Sketches of Bunuba, Ndjebbana, and Kugu Nganhcara (review)

Detailed linguistic descriptions exist of only a minority of Australia’s 200 or so known aboriginal languages. The two editors of this book have long been in the forefront of efforts to improve this state of affairs. The first volume of the Handbook appeared in 1979, the fourth (The languages of Melbourne and other grammatical sketches, ed. by R. M. W. Dixon and Barry J. Blake, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1991) more than a decade ago. This newest volume adds three high-quality grammatical sketches (sixteen have appeared in the four previous volumes). The languages included here—Bunuba, Ndjébbana, and Kugu Nganhcara—are all spoken in northern areas of Australia. The first two have prefixes while Kugu Nganhcara has proclitics, sometimes considered to be a precursor to the development of prefixation. Many linguists would likewise count all three as non-Pama-Nyungan, and the languages are identified as such in the individual chapters, though one of the editors, Dixon, rejects the traditional genetic divide between Pama-Nyungan and non-Pama-Nyungan (R. M. W. Dixon, The rise and fall of languages, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).

Each sketch begins with a map showing the language’s location, followed by introductory sociolinguistic facts and data about earlier linguistic studies. The bulk of information is arranged in traditionally structured sections entitled ‘Phonology’, ‘Morphology’, and ‘Syntax’. The description is based upon a profusion of well-glossed examples, cogently discussed with a minimum of theoretical terminology. Texts and a vocabulary are arranged according to semantic fields so that each sketch contains everything needed to impart a basic understanding of the language. The presentation should be immediately accessible to linguists of all theoretical orientations.

The sketch on Bunubu by Alan Rumsey (35–152) describes a language closely related to the better-known Gooniyandi (William McGregor, Functional grammar of Gooniyandi, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1990). One of the more interesting subsections discusses ‘mother-in-law talk’ (123–27). Graham McKay’s sketch of Ndjébbana (155–355), a language that makes extensive use of both prefixes and suffixes, follows the same basic format. The complex Ndjébbana system of nominal possessive markers is particularly interesting (194–49). The last sketch, by Ian Smith and Steve Johnson, on Kugu Nganhcara (357–489), likewise describes a language with only a few hundred speakers. All three languages are poly-synthetic and have much to offer the comparative morphologist. Each sketch also contains a wealth of anthropological linguistic data on such topics as kinship and social organization reflecting the authors’ extensive fieldwork. A general bibliography closes the volume (490–507).

A strength of this book is the attention paid to contemporary sociolinguistic realities. A special introduction by Mary Laughren (1–32) discusses ongoing efforts to record, preserve, or revive Aboriginal languages. Also included here is information about language usage in daily life and through various media, from television and radio to computer retrieval systems. Ongoing Aboriginal language teaching programs and current sources of funding are also described. An appendix (30) lists Aboriginal language resource centers.

This volume, like previous installments of the Handbook, represents an important contribution to the worldwide effort to record endangered languages for scientific and human posterity.