Kalaw Lagaw Ya - A 'Pre-Historical' Overview of The Language

A 'Pre-Historical' Overview of The Language

An examination of the various sub-systems (vocabulary, syntax, morphology) of Kalaw Lagaw Ya gives the following evidence of development:

Papuan (Trans-Fly) A little basic vocabulary, some abstract vocabulary, some verbs. Some grammar, such as verb number and different stems for different number forms of some verbs. Use of state/movement verbs as existential 'to be' verbs. Two non-personal pronouns : naag/naga how, namuidh / namuith when (both in KKY, the dialect of the islands off the Papuan coast).

Australian (Paman) Some basic vocabulary, all personal pronouns (inc. who and what/which), some verbs. Some grammar, such as nominal and verb morphology (subject, agent, object, genitive, -l locative, -ka dative in the dialects closer to Australia, perfective, imperfective, -iz(i) perfective intransitive-antipassive. (Note that these typological categories also exist in the Trans-Fly languages; the forms in Kalaw Lagaw Ya are clearly Australian).

Austronesian Some basic vocabulary, terminology dealing with agriculture, canoes, the weather, the sky and the sea, some abstract nouns, some verbs. Possibly some grammar in the form of function words, such as waadh (KKY waaza) existential emphasis (i.e. ‘it is true that...’).

The Australian word and structure forms found in Kalaw Lagaw Ya give every appearance of being retentions, i.e. inherited, in that the original Australian systems appear to be unchanged at the core level. That is to say, Kalaw Lagaw Ya is not a pidgin/creole in origin, but an Australian language which has undergone quite a bit of external lexical and grammatical influence.

Hence, in this respect, Kalaw Lagaw Ya appears to be a classic case of shift (Thomason and Kaufmann, 1978:212), whereby speakers of one language, over a long period of time, retained multilingualism while taking over the target language. The Papuan language gave relatively few words to Kalaw Lagaw Ya, but changed the originally Australian phonology and syntax profoundly. The contrast of Australian laminal nh/ny and lh/ly and apical n and l has been lost, voicing has become phonemic, and s, z, t, d, o and òò have been introduced. This also seems to have caused reanalysis in the phonology of Australian vocabulary, such that these “foreign” sounds occur in such words.

On the other hand, Austronesian content in Kalaw Lagaw Ya (and the neighbouring Papuan languages) appears to be mainly lexicon (including verbs), particularly in the spheres of sea, farming, canoe and sky/weather/astrological terminology, with some possible syntactic words. Hence, this presents a picture (again following Thomason and Kaufmann 1988:212) of a typically extensive borrowing situation with much lexical borrowing and some structural borrowing with a large amount of passive bilingualism with little active bilingualism.

Laade’s picture (1968) of Australian and Papuan settlement in Torres Strait supports the above scenario of Papuan speakers who shifted to an Australian language over a long period of time, and Austronesians who were culturally superstratum, however not in a position to impose their language. He presented folk history evidence that a few Austronesian traders (men) settled at Parema (north-east of Daru) and married local women. To avoid further miscenegenation, they soon moved and settled in Torres Strait, first to the Eastern Islands, then to the Central Islands, then to Moa, Badu and Mabuiag. At Mabuiag, Badu and Moa they found Aboriginal people, killed the men and kept the women (and presumably the children). Some moved on up to Saibai, Doewan and Boeigu to avoid this new miscenegenation, hence the lighter colour of many Saibai, Doewan and Boeigu people. Boeigu folk history collected by Laade also shows direct East Austronesian genetic influence on Boeigu (Laade 1968).

The social milieu that the above discussions presents is that of a few Austronesian men who settled on the outskirts of an East Trans-Fly group, intermarried, and whose children were either bilingual, or speakers of their mothers’ language, with some knowledge of their fathers’ language. The local people did not need to speak the traders’ language, who in turn had to speak the local language. The children in turn would then speak the local language, with varying ability in the fathers’ language, particularly in areas that were culturally important for the fathers.

These people then shifted to Torres Strait - maintaining established ties with Papua - and overlaid an Australian population in such a way that the majority of women spoke an Australian language, with a significant number, mainly men, who spoke a Papuan language with significant Austronesian influence. Over time, the core structure of the mothers’ dominated, with retention of the men’s Papuo-Austronesian content in the appropriate cultural subsystems. In essence this would have been a ‘replay’ of the original settlement by Austronesian traders at Parema, with the women understanding the language of the men, but not really needing to speak it while retaining parts of their language for significant areas. The children then created a new language shift to an Australian language with a Papuan-Austronesian admixture.

Thus, Kalaw Lagaw Ya appears to be a mixed language in that a significant part of its lexicon, phonology and grammar is not Australian in origin. The core nominal, pronominal and verb morphology is Australian in both form and grammar - though a certain amount of the grammar is common to Trans-Fly and Paman languages in the first place. Its semantic categories, verb number morphology, and some other morphology are non-Australian in origin. Further, potentially 80% of its vocabulary is non-Australian. The interplay of the above within the subsystems of Kalaw Lagaw Ya lexicon, phonology and grammar points more to mixing through shift and borrowing rather than pidginisation and creolisation.