David Nash

Munanga

11 February 20114 October 2008 by David Nash

Munanga, ‘white person’ is widespread among the languages of the Arnhem Land region

as Jay Arthur (1996:161) notes in her compilation of written Aboriginal English, supported by citations from the northern NT 1977-1995.¹ This extends to the present, as Wamut that munanga linguist can testify.
I was intrigued to learn recently that scholars don’t have much of an idea of the origin of the word. The AND (Australian National Dictionary 1988), now available online, has the earliest written citation

1912 Bulletin (Sydney) 15 Feb. 13/2 There is the much less widely known aboriginal term ‘myrnonga’. The myrnonga is a person of more promiscuous habits [than the combo] who – prowls with furtiveness when the moon is young.

but this is under the obscure headword murlonga ‘A white man who sexually exploits Aboriginal women’, with etymology

[Poss. a. Yolŋu sub-group munaŋa a white person.]²

The hy-phen at Port Jackson

5 February 20119 December 2007 by David Nash

Mark Liberman’s post at Language Log ‘On
the origins of ‘American Indian hyphens’ (with updates) locates
“the practice of writing American Indian words — especially proper
names — with multiple internal hyphens” in the 19th century. The
earliest usage Mark has found so far is in an 1823 publication about an
1819-20 expedition across the USA.

Here in Australia, by about 1791 hyphens between
syllables were common when the Sydney Language was being
written down by the English colonists (who had arrived in 1788).

A good example is David Collins’ list near the end of his 1798 An account of the
English colony in New
South Wales (pp.407-413 in 1975 edition; at “What
follows is
offered only as a specimen, not as a perfect vocabulary of their
language”).

“And I for one welcome our new * overlords.”

6 June 201712 August 2007 by David Nash

The snowclone title I owe to Mark Liberman’s LanguageLog post.

I’ve continued to track which communities are being targetted by the “Howard/Brough plan” (last update on 22 July). Last Tuesday we learnt which communities will get a 5-year lease to the Commonwealth. These are set out in the Northern Territory National Emergency Response Bill 2007 and its Schedules, wherein s.2(1) specifies commencement dates of the leases.