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The last native speaker of the language died in 1964. However, the language has been revived thanks to the work of a German Lutheran pastor Clamor Wilhelm Schürmann, who worked at a mission in 1844 and recorded 3,500 (or 2000?[2]) words to form a Barngarla dictionary,[3] entitled A Vocabulary of the Parnkalla [Barngarla] Language, Spoken by the Natives Inhabiting the Western Shores of Spencer’s Gulf.[4]
In October 2016, a mobile app featuring a dictionary of over 3,000 Barngarla words was publicly released.[7]
Wardlada Mardinidhi / Barngarla Bush Medicines, a 24-page book, was published in July 2023. It is the third book co-written by Zuckermann and members of the Richards family of Port Lincoln, this time represented by Evelyn Walker. It records the names a number of native plants from around Port Lincoln in Barngarla, Latin, and English, and describes their use as bush medicine. Walker hopes that the book will form part of a program to help youth and others affected by the Stolen Generations to reconnect with their culture and language, improving their mental health.[2]
Phonology
Consonants
Barngarla has the following consonant phonemes:[8]
Despite being considered letters of Barngarla, "ai" and "aw”, do not denote distinct phonemes. On the contrary, they are in fact nothing more than the sum of their parts. The sound of "ai" is literally just the sound of "a" followed by the sound of "i"; similarly with "aw".
One important thing to note is that when there is a sequence of two dental phonemes ("dh", "nh"), the "h" is only written once rather than twice. That is, the sequence /d̪n̪/ is written "dnh" and not "dhnh". Similarly with palatal phonemes ("dy", "ny", "ly") with the "y", ("dny" instead of "dyny"), and with retroflex phonemes ("rd", "rl", "rn") with the "r", ("rdn" instead of "rdrn").
Grammar
Grammatical number
Barngarla has four grammatical numbers: singular, dual, plural and superplural.[10]: 227–228 For example:
wárraidyailyarranha'a lot of emus, heaps of emus (superplural)'[10]: 228
Matrilineal and patrilineal distinction
Barngarla is characterised by a matrilineal and patrilineal distinction. For example, the matrilineal ergative case first person dual pronoun ngadlaga ("we two") would be used by a mother and her child, or by a man and his sister’s child, while the patrilineal form ngarrrinyi would be used by a father and his child, or by a woman with her brother’s child.[11]: 7
Naming children according to their birth order
In traditional Barngarla, birth order was so important that each child within the family was named according to the order in which they were born. Barngarla has nine male birth order names and nine female birth order names, as following:[9]: 42
Male: Biri (1st), Warri (2nd), Gooni (3rd), Mooni (4th), Mari (5th), Yari (6th), Mili (7th), Wanggooyoo (8th) and Ngalai (9th).
To determine the suitable name for the newborn Barngarla child, the parents first found out the number of the newborn within the family, and only then selected the male/female name, according to the gender of the newborn. So, for example, if a baby girl was born after three boys, her name would have been Moonaga (4th born, female) as she was the fourth child within the family.[citation needed]
^ abcClendon, Mark (2015). Clamor Schürmann's Barngarla grammar: A commentary on the first section of "A vocabulary of the Parnkalla language". Adelaide: University of Adelaide Press. hdl:20.500.12657/33049. ISBN978-1-925261-11-0.
