Burduna is an Aboriginal language that was traditionally spoken in the region between the Ashburton and Gascyone Rivers in the

Pilbara The Pilbara () is a large, dry, sparsely populated regions of Western Australia, region in the north of Western Australia. It is known for its Indigenous Australians, Aboriginal people; wealth disparity; its ancient landscapes; the prevailing r ...

region of

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

. It belongs to the Kanyara group of languages, which also includes Binigura/Pinikura (also known as Thalanyji). The language is now classified as critically endangered, with no recorded native speakers as of 2004. However, there are some people of Burduna heritage who can still speak and recognise a few words and phrases.

Evolution

Burduna has been classified as a

double-marking language A double-marking language is one in which the grammatical marks showing relations between different constituents of a phrase tend to be placed on both the heads (or nuclei) of the phrase in question, and on the modifiers or dependents. Pervasive ...

. Although it has been categorised as a Kanyara language, it is significantly different from the other languages in the category as it underwent a number of changes in pronunciation. Over the years, the language lost most of its nasal sounds and tones. Certain words that contains peripheral stops with ''p'' and ''k'' sounds

lenited In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them "weaker" in some way. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language ...

to a ''w'' sound instead. For example, ''papu'' (father) became ', and ''puka'' (bad) became ''.'' However, this lenition did not occur when the previous syllable contained a ''w''. Instead, the consonants ''p'' and ''k'' descended, and were pronounced as ''b'' and ''g'' respectively. Another marked difference included the pronunciation of polysyllabic words such as ' (spouse) and ' (devil). These words lost their middle consonants and were shortened to ''yaan'' and ''puurra.'' The vowels were pronounced with a long, drawn-out sound. Burduna words also contained consonant clusters in words such as ''db'' in ''dagba'' (spider) or ''rdg'' in ' (beard). Furthermore, words that originally contained consonant clusters underwent lenition and were pronounced with softer sounds. For example, ''mb'' was pronounced as ''p'', ''nd'' as ''t'', and ''ngg'' as ''k''. In addition, where other languages have a ''dh'' or a ''j'' in the middle of words, Burduna evolved to contain a ''y.'' For example, the Thalanyji word ' (cousin) had its Burduna complement spelt as '''.''

Culture and development

The

Burduna people Burduna is an Aboriginal language that was traditionally spoken in the region between the Ashburton and Gascyone Rivers in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. It belongs to the Kanyara group of languages, which also includes Binigura/P ...

were located around the Nyang and Maroonah regions between the Ashburton and Gascyone rivers in north-western Australia. Their traditional country regions included the regions around the Yannarie and Lyndon rivers. Some of the area in and around the Towera region is also identified as being traditional Burduna land. The Kanyara people traditionally spoke three different languages - Purduna or Burduna, Thalanyji, and Bayungu or Payungu. The three languages share highly similar sentence structure and vocabulary, with 60-70% of words being common across all three of them. The societal structure of the Burduna people consisted of four different subsets. Each subset was further divided into 'totems', and each totem was further divided into ''. Individuals within a were assigned gender-specific titles, and these titles were used to address them in the same manner as personal names are used today. A totemic was inherited in a patrilineal manner, i.e., an offspring born to parents from two different was assigned to the of the father. Marriages within the same totem were not allowed. Often, these totems and interspersed with people from different linguistic backgrounds. For example, the totem 'Snake' included the Burduna-speaking population as well as the Thalanyji-speaking population. As a result of white settlement along the Ashburton and Gascyone river regions, the language ceased to be used, and is believed to have died out sometime during the first half of the twentieth century. There are a few people living in Onslow and Carnarvon who can still speak and recognize a few words and phrases, but the majority of Burduna descendants have intermarried with other language groups. The ''National Language Indigenous 2004 Survey'' estimated that there are no native speakers of the language. It has thus been classified as endangerment level 0.

Lexicon and grammar

There are two major word classes and three minor ones in the Burduna language. The first major word class contains the nominal words, which includes

noun In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an Object (grammar), object or Subject (grammar), subject within a p ...

s and

adjective An adjective (abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that describes or defines a noun or noun phrase. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives are considered one of the main part of speech, parts of ...

s, names,

pronoun In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (Interlinear gloss, glossed ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the part of speech, parts of speech, but so ...

demonstrative Demonstratives (list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated ) are words, such as ''this'' and ''that'', used to indicate which entities are being referred to and to distinguish those entities from others. They are typically deictic, their meaning ...

s, and

cardinal direction The four cardinal directions or cardinal points are the four main compass directions: north (N), south (S), east (E), and west (W). The corresponding azimuths ( clockwise horizontal angle from north) are 0°, 90°, 180°, and 270°. The ...

s. The second major word group includes the

verb A verb is a word that generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual description of English, the basic f ...

s. The three minor word groups include

adverb An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, an adjective, another adverb, a determiner, a clause, a preposition, or a sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, or level of certainty by ...

particles In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscle in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass. They vary greatly in size or quantity, from s ...

, and

interjection An interjection is a word or expression that occurs as an utterance on its own and expresses a spontaneous feeling, situation or reaction. It is a diverse category, with many different types, such as exclamations ''(ouch!'', ''wow!''), curses (''da ...

Notes

References

External links

Wangka Maya Pilbara Aboriginal Language Centre
— contains information about the Burduna language and many other Pilbara languages, as well as usage examples {{Pama–Nyungan languages, West Kanyara languages Endangered indigenous Australian languages in Western Australia