The Lake Macquarie missionary the Rev. Lancelot Threlkeld produced a grammar of the language where his mission was established. This language came to be known as Awabakal, though now also referred to as the Lake Macquarie–Hunter River language.
Threlkeld’s grammar and other language works are remarkable for their volume and detail. But as his record is virtually the only one for the language, there is nothing against which to check his assertions about meaning and usage.
One matter in particular concerns the short form pronouns, which in the Sydney language are bound on as suffixes to the stem of verbs, following any other previous suffixes such as for meaning amplification and tense.
Table 1: Extract from Threlkeld’s pronoun table, p.17*
1sg: I | 2sg: thou | 3sg m: he | 3sg f: she | 1pl: we | 2pl: you | 3pl: they | |
Full form nominative | Nga-toa | Ngin-toa | Niu-woa | Boun-toa | Ngé-en | Nú-ra | Ba-ra |
Short form nominative | Bang | Bi | Noa | ||||
Accusative | Emmo-ung | Ngiro-ung | Ngiko-ung | Boun-no-un | Ngear-un | Núr-un | Bar-un. |
Short form accusative | Tia | Bin | Bón |
* THRELKELD, L. E. (1892a) An Australian language as spoken by the Awabakal, the people of Awaba or Lake Macquarie (near Newcastle, New South Wales) being an account of their language, traditions and customs / by L.E. Threlkeld; re-arranged, condensed and edited with an appendix by John Fraser, Sydney, Charles Potter, Government Printer.
Threlkeld provides a table for the ‘conjoined dual’, or nominative-accusative short-form pronouns:
Table 2: Conjoined dual forms
Ba-nung | Ba-noun | Bi-tia | Bi-núng | Bi-noun | Bi-loa | Bin-toa |
I-thee | I-her | thou-me | thou-him | thou-her | he-thee | she-thee |
What seems to be probably correct in this table are the short forms for:
I: ba me: tia thou: bi thee: bin and possibly: her: noun as picked out in blue in the table above.
Possibly correct, though not appearing in Table 2, is: him: nung. This is an accusative suffix, so could well be used for ‘him’.
Troubling points include the following: nung: used for both ‘thee’ and ‘him’ loa/toa: ‘thee’: –luwa, –duwa are actually causative, comitative or proprietive suffixes bi-loa: bi actually means ‘thou’, not ‘he’ bin-dua: bin actually means ‘thee’, not ‘she’
In the whole of the Threlkeld body of work there are almost no examples of the pronoun combinations in Table 2 other than for ‘thou-me’, e.g.
original | Kotåra bi tia ġuwa buwil koa bón baġ |
respelt | gudara bi diya nguwa buwilguwa bun bang |
original translation | Cudgel thou me give to-strike (ut) {in order} him I. / |
word-for-word | club thou me give-IMP! beat might-having him I |
idiomatic | Give me a club so that I can beat him |
A more likely set of nominative-accusative pronouns than in Table 2 would seem to be as in Table 3:
Table 3: Proposed complete set of singular conjoined dual pronouns
I thee | ba bin | I him | ba nung | I her | ba nun | ||
thou me | bi diya | thou him | bi bun | thou her | bi nun | ||
he me | nuwa diya | he thee | nuwa bin | he her | nuwa duwa | ||
she me | nun diya | she thee | nun bin | she him | nun bun |
All the words shown in blue can be found in Threlkeld’s table. Words in red are speculative inventions. Words in pink are speculative combinations. Spellings in Table 3 are as used in the Bayala Australian Language Databases.
Jeremy Steele 8 May 2018