Pallanganmiddang Language

Pallanganmiddang (Waywurru, Waveroo) is an extinct, poorly-attested Aboriginal language of the Upper Murray region of the northeast of Victoria, that was spoken by the Pallanganmiddang people.

Name

Many tribe and language names in the area end in a suffix variously spelt , , , , and ; this suffix may have an etymological association with "speech" or "tongue" (compare Western Australian language Kalaamaya's "tongue", likely a cognate), and, in Pallanganmiddang's case, seems to denote an ethnonym.

Pallanganmiddang has been alternatively known as Balangamida, Pallangahmiddang, Pal-ler an mitter, Wavaroo, Wave Veroo, Waveroo, Wayyourong, Wayyouroo, Wayerroo, Waywurru, Weeerroo and Weeherroo.

Classification

Although it was a Pama-Nyungan language, Pallanganmiddang was likely quite distinct from its neighbouring languages, such as Dhudhuroa, Yorta Yorta and Wiradjuri; its percentage of shared vocabulary with its neighbours is very low. The only exception is a purported language mentioned in an 1899 list titled "Barwidgee, Upper Murray", with which Pallanganmiddang shares 39% of its vocabulary. This source may actually show a dialect of Dhudhuroa spoken near the border of Pallanganmiddang territory, or it may be conflating two languages, although the list's use of words not native to the area suggests its lack of reliability.

Despite its seeming lack of closeness to neighbouring languages, Pallanganmiddang does contain many roots familiar in Aboriginal languages such as "to see", and "to go".

Documentation

There are only four primary source documents on the language: a vocabulary of 46 words from 1878 and a vocabulary of 109 words from 1886, a vocabulary of 341 words of unclear date, and a vocabulary of 63 words from 1900, which, taken together, provide a list of more than 300 words.

Phonology

Consonants

The consonant inventory was probably the same as in neighbouring languages. The following table shows the ''maximum'' inventory, with sounds not directly attested being shown in brackets:

* The variation between ''p''/''b'', ''t''/''d'', and ''k''/''g'' in the sources suggest a lack of phonemic distinction between voiced and voiceless consonants.
* There was probably not a phonemic distinction between dentals and palatals, since some words are recorded with both ''t''/''d,'' suggesting a dental or alveolar plosive, ''and j/g,'' suggesting a palatal plosive (e.g. "foot" is variously spelt or , "man" is variously spelt , or ).
* There is no definite evidence for retroflexes, but the spelling of "crayfish" suggests they existed.
* There probably was a distinction between a flapped or trilled rhotic, and a glide-type rhotic (possibly a retroflex), but such distinctions were not made in older sources.

The following table shows consonants in both initial and intervocalic form; note the differences between the voiced and voiceless plosives:

Only 7 words ending with consonants have been recorded (the word is suspicious, however, as is also recorded and is documented for another language in Victoria). Three of these words occur in another form (or similar word) ending in a vowel; even "mother" may have had the alternate form , based on "father". It seems likely Pallanganmiddang did not allow final consonants.

Consonant clusters

Pallanganmiddang contained homorganic nasal-plosive consonantal clusters. There were also heterorganic clusters, some of which went across morpheme boundaries such as in "father".

Vowels

Pallanganmiddang may have had only three vowels /i/, /u/ and /a/, similar to many Aboriginal languages, although the exact amount is unclear. Nonetheless, according to different sources, ''a'', ''e'', ''i'', ''o'', and ''u'' are all used. There may have been a distinction between long and short vowels, as suggested by the spelling in the first syllable of "group", but this is unclear.

There may have been no phonemic distinction between ''u'' and ''o'', as suggested by variant spellings, such as and "blood".

Monosyllabic words with no final consonant seemingly contained a long vowel (e.g. "eye", "nose"), a feature common in Aboriginal languages.

Sound correspondences

Robert M.W Dixon, in his notes, claimed that there seems to be evidence of sound correspondence between Pallanganmiddang and its neighbouring languages. See this list:

Grammar

No primary source data are available for Pallanganmiddang's grammar. However, there are short sentences included in the collected vocabulary lists, although it is difficult to glean much information from them.

Pronouns

The forms and are both recorded for "you". Another word, , although given as "I", could possibly be a variant of . If spelled (as the initial velar nasal may have been unheard), it matches a word meaning "you" in Yorta Yorta and Latji-Latji.

is recorded for "I". This could have been pronounced something like , and so , although given as "you", could perhaps be a first-person pronoun. In fact, seems to match the final two syllables in (translated as "hungry"), (translated as "thirsty") and (translated as "drink"), possibly meaning "I'm hungry", "I'm thirsty", and "I drink".

is recorded for "me", and for "my". However, a velar nasal, rather than the implied palatal nasal from the spelling, is more typical for first person pronouns in languages in the area. This could suggest they are possibly misglossed and are actually second person pronouns; alternatively, a sound change could have occurred, or the text could be erroneous.

One wordlist records for "hungry"; since ''wan'' means "I" in several other languages in Victoria, this possibly suggests a translation of as "I'm hungry" and therefore ''wan'' as a bound first-person pronoun (and the previously-mentioned , etc as the free form).

Morphology

There probably was a suffix (in neighbouring language Dhudhuroa, occurred as a second person subject bound pronoun):

The suffix can be found on verbs (in other languages of Victoria, this is a plural imperative or a dative-purposive marking a purposive or infinitive verb):

Many verbs end in either or :

appears in some words:

appears in some words:

appears to be a suffix, appearing on nouns, verbs, and forms of uncertain word class. This may actually represent two suffixes, the distinction unheard by the documenters.

Some nouns referring to humans end in :

was possibly a causative suffix; compare the translations of "come" and "fetch it":

Vocabulary

The following table contains a list of selected vocabulary from Pallanganmiddang:

*

References

{{Pama–Nyungan languages, East

Gippsland languages
Extinct languages of Victoria (state)