Editing Mbabaram language

{{short description|Australian Aboriginal language}}
{{distinguish|text = the [[Bambara language]]}}
{{more footnotes|date=December 2011}}
{{Infobox language
| name             = Mbabaram
| altname          = Barbaram
| region           = [[Queensland]]
| ethnicity        = [[Mbabaram people|Mbabaram]]
| extinct          = 1972, with the death of Albert Bennett
|ref=<ref>{{Cite book |last=Dixon |first=R. M. W. |title=Searching for Aboriginal Languages: Memoirs of a Field Worker |date=1984 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-02504-1 |series=Cambridge library collection. Linguistics |location=Cambridge|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tWHiDB9rJ5kC&pg=PA208|page=208}}</ref>
| familycolor      = Australian
| fam1             = [[Pama–Nyungan languages|Pama–Nyungan]]
| fam2             = [[Paman languages|Paman]]
| fam3             = [[Southern Paman languages|Southern Paman]]
| iso3             = vmb
| glotto           = mbab1239
| glottorefname    = Mbabaram
| aiatsis          = Y115
| notice           = IPA
| nativename       = {{lang|vmb|Mbabaɽam}}
| map              = File:Traditional_lands_of_the_Australian_aboriginal_tribes_around_Cairns.png
| mapcaption       = [[Traditional owner|Traditional lands]] of the Aboriginal peoples around [[Cairns]]; Mbabaram in {{legend inline|#00ffff|cyan}}.
| states           = [[Australia]]
}}

'''Mbabaram''' (Barbaram) is an [[language death|extinct]] [[Australian Aboriginal languages|Australian Aboriginal language]] of north [[Queensland]]. It was the traditional language of the [[Mbabaram people]]. Recordings are held in the Audiovisual Archive of the [[Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies]]. [[R. M. W. Dixon]] described his hunt for a native speaker of Mbabaram in his book ''Searching for Aboriginal Languages: Memoirs of a Field Worker''. Most of what is known of the language is from Dixon's field research with speaker Albert Bennett.

==Classification==
Until [[R. M. W. Dixon]]'s work on the language, "Barbaram" (as it was then known) was thought to be too different from other languages to be part of the Pama–Nyungan language family. Dixon revealed it to have descended from a more typical form, that was obscured by subsequent changes. Dixon (2002) himself, however, still regards [[Genetic relationship (linguistics)|genetic relationship]]s between Mbabaram and other languages as unproven.

==Geographic distribution==
Mbabaram was spoken by the [[Mbabaram tribe]] in [[Queensland]], southwest of [[Cairns]] ({{coord|17|20|S|145|0|E|region:AU-QLD}}).

Nearby tribal dialects were [[Agwamin language|Agwamin]], [[Djangun language|Djangun]] ([[Kuku-Yalanji language|Kuku-Yalanji]]), [[Muluridji language|Muluridji]] ([[Kuku-Yalanji language|Kuku-Yalanji]]), [[Djabugay language|Djabugay]], [[Yidiny language|Yidiny]], [[Ngadjan language|Ngadjan]] ([[Dyirbal language|Dyirbal]]), [[Mamu language|Mamu]] ([[Dyirbal language|Dyirbal]]), [[Jirrbal language|Jirrbal]] ([[Dyirbal language|Dyirbal]]), [[Girramay language|Girramay]] ([[Dyirbal language|Dyirbal]]), and [[Warungu language|Warungu]]. While these were often [[mutual intelligibility|mutually intelligible]], to varying degrees, with the speech of the adjacent tribes, none were even partially intelligible with Mbabaram. The Mbabaram would often learn the languages of other tribes rather than vice versa, because Mbabaram was found difficult.

==Phonology==
===Vowels===
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"
!
! [[Front vowel|Front]]
! [[Central vowel|Central]]
! [[Back vowel|Back]]
|-
! [[High vowel|High]]
| {{IPAlink|i}}
| {{IPAlink|ɨ}}
| {{IPAlink|u}}
|-
! [[Low-mid vowel|Low-mid]]
| {{IPAlink|ɛ}}
|
| {{IPAlink|ɔ}}
|-
! [[Low vowel|Low]]
|
| {{IPAlink|a}}
|
|}

===Consonants===
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"
!rowspan="2"|
!colspan="2"| [[Peripheral consonant|Peripheral]]
!colspan="2"| [[Laminal consonant|Laminal]]
!colspan="2"| [[Apical consonant|Apical]]
|-
! [[Bilabial consonant|Bilabial]]
! [[Velar consonant|Velar]]
! [[Palatal consonant|Palatal]]
! [[Dental consonant|Dental]]
! [[Alveolar consonant|Alveolar]]
! [[Retroflex consonant|Retroflex]]
|-
! [[Plosive]]
| {{IPAlink|b}}
| {{IPAlink|ɡ}} {{quad}} {{IPAlink|ɡʷ}}
| {{IPAlink|ɟ}}
| {{IPAlink|d̪}}
| {{IPAlink|d}} {{quad}} {{IPAlink|dʷ}}
|
|-
! [[Nasal stop|Nasal]]
| {{IPAlink|m}}
| {{IPAlink|ŋ}}
| {{IPAlink|ɲ}}
| {{IPAlink|n̪}}
| {{IPAlink|n}} {{quad}} {{IPAlink|nʷ}}
|
|-
! [[Lateral consonant|Lateral]]
|
|
|
|
| {{IPAlink|l}}
|
|-
! [[Rhotic consonant|Rhotic]]
|
|
|
|
| {{IPAlink|r}}
| {{IPAlink|ɻ}}
|-
! [[Semivowel]]
|colspan="2"| {{IPAlink|w}}
| {{IPAlink|j}}
|
|
|
|}

===Phonological history===
====Vowels====
Mbabaram would have originally had simply three vowels, {{IPA|/i a u/}}, like most Australian languages, but several changes occurred to add {{IPA|/ɛ ɨ ɔ/}} to the system:
*{{IPA|[ɔ]}} developed from original {{IPA|*/a/}} in the second syllable of a word if the first syllable began with {{IPA|*/ɡ/}}, {{IPA|*/ŋ/}}, or {{IPA|*/wu/}}.
*{{IPA|[ɛ]}} developed from original {{IPA|*/a/}} in the second syllable of a word if the first syllable began with {{IPA|*/ɟ/}}. (It may have also occurred with {{IPA|/ɲ/}} or {{IPA|/ji/}}, but no examples are known.)
*{{IPA|[ɨ]}} developed from original {{IPA|*/i/}} in the second syllable of a word if the first syllable began with {{IPA|*/ɡ/}}, {{IPA|*/ŋ/}}, or {{IPA|*/w/}}.
*{{IPA|[ɨ]}} also developed from original {{IPA|*/u/}} in the second syllable of a word if the first syllable began with {{IPA|*/ɟ/}}, {{IPA|*/ɲ/}}, or {{IPA|*/j/}}.
The first consonant of each word was then dropped, leaving the distribution of {{IPA|/ɔ ɛ ɨ/}} unpredictable.

== Vocabulary ==

* {{Lang|vmb|dog}} (dog), unrelated to the English word
* ''gungdg'' (kookaburra)
* ''yú'' (fish){{sfn|Dixon|1972|p=348}}

=== Word for "dog" ===
Mbabaram is famous in linguistic circles for a striking coincidence in its vocabulary. When Dixon finally managed to meet Bennett, he began his study of the language by eliciting a few basic nouns; among the first of these was the word for "dog". Bennett supplied the Mbabaram translation, {{lang|vmb|dog}}. Dixon suspected that Bennett had not understood the question, or that Bennett's knowledge of Mbabaram had been tainted by decades of using English. But it turned out that the Mbabaram word for "dog" was in fact {{lang|vmb|dúg}},<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Dixon|first=Robert M. W.|date=1966|title=Mbabaram: A Dying Australian Language|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/611096|journal=Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London|volume=29|issue=1|pages=97–121|doi=10.1017/S0041977X00060833|jstor=611096|issn=0041-977X|url-access=subscription}}</ref> pronounced almost identically to the [[Australian English]] word (compare true cognates such as [[Yidiny language|Yidiny]] {{lang|yii|gudaga}}, [[Dyirbal language|Dyirbal]] {{lang|dbl|guda}}, [[Djabugay language|Djabugay]] {{lang|dyy|gurraa}} and [[Guugu Yimithirr language|Guugu Yimidhirr]] {{lang|kky|gudaa}}, for example<ref>{{cite book |last=Black |first=Paul |editor1-last=Bowern |editor1-first=Claire |editor2-last=Koch |editor2-first=Harold James |title=Australian languages: classification and the comparative method |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rmvmCvs9zQcC&q=Yidiny+dog&pg=PA264 |access-date=2010-01-08 |series=Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science. Series 4, Current Issues in Linguistic Theory |volume=249 |year=2004 |publisher=John Benjamins |isbn=978-1-58811-512-6 |page=264 |chapter=The Failure of the Evidence of Shared Innovations in Cape York peninsula}}</ref>). The similarity is a complete coincidence: the English and Mbabaram languages developed on opposite sides of the planet over the course of tens of thousands of years. This and other [[false cognate]]s have been cited by typological linguist [[Bernard Comrie]] as a caution against deciding that languages are related based on a small number of lexical comparisons.<ref name="Comrie intro">{{cite book | last=Comrie | first=Bernard | title=The World's Major Languages | chapter=Introduction | publisher=Routledge | publication-place=Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY|year=1987| doi=10.4324/9781315644936-1 | page=6| isbn=978-1-315-64493-6 }}</ref>

==References==
<references/>

==Bibliography==
*{{cite journal |last=Dixon |first=R. M. W. |year=1966 |title=Mbabaram: A Dying Australian Language |journal=Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London |volume=29 |pages=97–121 |issue=1 |doi=10.1017/S0041977X00060833}}
*{{Cite book| title = The Dyirbal Language of North Queensland
 | last = Dixon | first = R. M. W.
 | author-link = Robert M. W. Dixon
 | year = 1972
 | publisher = [[Cambridge University Press]]
 | url = https://archive.org/details/dyirballanguageo00dixo
 | url-access = registration
 | page = [https://archive.org/details/dyirballanguageo00dixo/page/348 348]
 | isbn = 978-0-521-08510-6
 }}
*{{cite book |last=Dixon |first=R. M. W. |year=1991 |chapter=Mbabaram |editor=Dixon, R. M. W. |editor2=Blake, B. J. |title=Handbook of Australian Languages |others=Vol. 4 |location=Melbourne |publisher=Oxford University Press}}
*{{cite book |last=Dixon |first=R. M. W. |year=2002 |title=Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development |publisher=Cambridge University Press |url=http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521473780}}

== External links ==
* [http://aiatsis.gov.au/sites/default/files/docs/collections/language_bibs/mbabaram_bar_barrum.pdf Bibliography of Mbabaram language and people resources], at the [[Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies]]

{{Pama–Nyungan languages|Paman}}
[[Category:Southern Pama languages]]
[[Category:Extinct languages of Queensland]]
[[Category:Coincidence]]