Pama-Nyungan grandparent systems change with grandchildren, but not cross-cousin terms or social norms

Kinship is a fundamental and universal aspect of the structure of human society. The kinship category of ‘grandparents’ is socially salient, due to grandparents’ investment in the care of the grandchildren as well as to older generations’ control of wealth and cultural knowledge, but the evolutionary dynamics of grandparent terms has yet to be studied in a phylogenetically explicit context. Here, we present the first phylogenetic comparative study of grandparent terms by investigating 134 languages in Pama-Nyungan, an Australian family of hunter-gatherer languages. We infer that proto-Pama-Nyungan had, with high certainty, four separate terms for grandparents. This state then shifted into either a two-term system that distinguishes the genders of the grandparents or a three-term system that merges the ‘parallel’ grandparents, which could then transition into a different three-term system that merges the ‘cross’ grandparents. We find no support for the co-evolution of these systems with either community marriage organisation or post-marital residence. We find some evidence for the correlation of grandparent and grandchild terms, but no support for the correlation of grandparent and cross-cousin terms, suggesting that grandparents and grandchildren potentially form a single lexical category but that the entire kinship system does not necessarily change synchronously

Euskara Batu Zaharraren haustura: oinarri metodologikoak eta literaturaren berrikuspena

Zenbait hamarkada joan zaizkigu Mitxelenak (1981) Euskara Batu Zaharra (EBZ), euskararen dialektoak sortzen hasi aurreko azken hizkuntz egoera bateratua, proposatu zuenetik. Aldiz, euskal dialektologia (diakronikoa) ez da horrenbeste garatu 40 urteotan eta gaia oraindik guztiz zabalik dago. Hala ere, egin dira zenbait hipotesi EBZren hausturaren inguruan. Lan honetan, EBZren lehen haustura ikertzeko kontuan hartu beharreko alderdi metodologikoak aztertzen ditut lehenik, inguruko tradizio garatuenetatik harturik. Ondoren, EBZren lehen hausturaz mintzatu diren lanak berrikusi eta ebaluatzen ditut, dialektologia diakronikoa egiteko oinarri metodologikoak betetzen dituzten ikusteko. Ikusten denez, oso gutxi dira filogenia egiten saiatzen diren lanak, eta are gutxiago irizpide kronologikoa, geografikoa eta hizkuntzazkoa gainditzen dituzten berrikuntzekin aritu direnak

Linguistic Innovation and Continuity: Teaching in and of Warlpiri Language at Yuendumu School

In Yuendumu, a remote community in Central Australia, children grow up speaking a traditional Aboriginal language, Warlpiri, learn English as an additional language and are exposed to other local and global languages via family networks, travel, media, and technology. At Yuendumu School, which aims to offer a bilingual with biliteracy program, Warlpiri educators have articulated Warlpiri pirrjirdi 'strong Warlpiri language' as both a medium of instruction and a goal for learning. This is in accordance with the community's aspirations for the school to be a key site of Warlpiri linguistic and cultural maintenance, and amidst concerns about pressure from English on Warlpiri language use, as well as minor documented changes to contemporary language practices since first contact with Europeans in the last century. This research into the 'ways of speaking' in three Warlpiri teaching and learning contexts at Yuendumu school in 2018-2019 drew on ethnography of communication as its theoretical and methodological approach to document both the linguistic practices and ideologies surrounding teaching and learning in and of Warlpiri language. Guided by a panel of Warlpiri mentors, it used mixed methods which included interactional analysis of classroom speech, complemented by thematic analysis of interviews with Warlpiri educators, of grey literature (professional development workshops reports, advocacy, curriculum, and policy documents) and multimodal arts-based language awareness activities with students. In this study, Warlpiri students expressed multiple identities within Warlpiri and global youth cultures, strong plurilingual awareness and reflected community values promoting Warlpiri language maintenance. The research showed how Warlpiri educators, as part of a broader Warlpiri Triangle professional network have developed and refined linguistic strategies over four decades to achieve their stated goals of Warlpiri language maintenance. In the classrooms, Warlpiri educators used these linguistic strategies to enact a target Warlpiri language policy, establishing and where necessary re-establishing Warlpiri pirrjirdi 'strong Warlpiri' as the classroom code. They also deployed plurilingual practices that reinforced social and kin relationships and created a favourable framework for in-depth processing of academic content and the co-construction of knowledge. As evidence of their learning and their sensitivity to different 'ways of speaking,' Warlpiri, students produced age-appropriate Warlpiri pirrjirdi 'strong Warlpiri' in specific tasks, such as re-telling traditional stories. They also reconceptualised content in ways that reflected their contemporary plurilingual repertoires and identities, such as in mapping activities following bush trips. The study explored the ways in which Warlpiri educators' language pedagogies exemplified linguistically responsive and culturally sustaining practices that build students' competence in Warlpiri pirrjirdi 'strong Warlpiri,' while also accommodating their contemporary ways of speaking, literacies, and identities in the school context. This thesis is one of very few in-depth documentations of educators' and students' first language practices and ideologies in an endangered Australian language maintenance education program. This work contributes to understandings of the local development and enactment of language-in-education policy and draws out lessons for dual language models of education in schools operating in contexts of language endangerment and change

The prehistory and internal relationships of Australian languages

Australian linguistic prehistory has lagged behind equivalent endeavours on other continents in part because of the dearth of grammars and dictionaries until recent times, when there has been a great deal of high quality work done. Australianist linguists have tended not to use the standard comparative method. In some cases, this was because it was prematurely judged inapplicable in Australia, due to supposed very high levels of diffusion, which did not allow cognates to be distinguished from loans. This view is losing ground as more solid reconstruction work is being done on the Pama-Nyungan family, Pama-Nyungan subgroups and Non-Pama-Nyungan families. As these results accumulate, together with studies of the linguistic stratigraphy of loanwords, they provide a more solid basis for hypotheses about the sociocultural and environmental prehistory that can then be tested against the results of other disciplines. Gradually a more detailed picture is emerging of an eventful and dynamic last 10,000years; linguistic evidence is crucial here. This is challenging the former view of relative stasis and equilibrium after the initial human colonisation 40,000-50,000years ago

The Prehistory and Internal Relationships of Australian Languages

Australian linguistic prehistory has lagged behind equivalent endeavours on other continents in part because of the dearth of grammars and dictionaries until recent times, when there has been a great deal of high quality work done. Australianist linguists have tended not to use the standard comparative method. In some cases, this was because it was prematurely judged inapplicable in Australia, due to supposed very high levels of diffusion, which did not allow cognates to be distinguished from loans. This view is losing ground as more solid reconstruction work is being done on the Pama-Nyungan family, Pama-Nyungan subgroups and Non-Pama-Nyungan families. As these results accumulate, together with studies of the linguistic stratigraphy of loanwords, they provide a more solid basis for hypotheses about the sociocultural and environmental prehistory that can then be tested against the results of other disciplines. Gradually a more detailed picture is emerging of an eventful and dynamic last 10,000years; linguistic evidence is crucial here. This is challenging the former view of relative stasis and equilibrium after the initial human colonisation 40,000-50,000years ago