Badimaya language


Badimaya is an Australian Aboriginal language. It is a member of the Kartu subgroup of the Pama–Nyungan family, spoken by the Badimaya people.
Badimaya is a critically endangered language, spoken by only a handful of elderly Aboriginal people, all of whom are over 65 years of age. However, there is a passionate movement of language revival underway in the Badimaya community.

Geographic distribution

Badimaya was traditionally spoken across a large region spanning Lake Moore, Ninghan Station, Paynes Find and Dalwallinu in the south, to Mount Magnet, Wynyangoo Station and Kirkalocka Station in the north
Today Badimaya people live across the Mid West region, based in regional towns and communities including Mount Magnet, Geraldton, Yalgoo, Mullewa, Meekatharra, Wubin, Dalwallinu and Perth.
Traditional Badimaya country is bordered by Western Desert language to the east, Noongar to the south-west and Wajarri to the north-west.

Varieties

Analysis of the lexicon and grammatical features of the language suggests that there were two varieties of Badimaya, a northern and southern variety. These varieties are unnamed; however, Badimaya speakers are aware of differences in the speech of Badimaya people from different regions of Badimaya country.

Typology

Badimaya is typologically fairly standard of Western Australian Pama-Nyungan languages. It has a phoneme inventory typical of Pama-Nyungan languages, with six places of articulation and a three-way vowel system, with length-contrast.
Badimaya is a suffixing language with fairly free word order. It has a split-ergative case marking system, consistent with neighbouring languages. Unlike neighbouring languages however, Badimaya does not show evidence for a bound pronominal system.

Grammar

Pronominal system

Pronouns are of the form: person+number+case. The third person displays person allomorphy conditioned by number. There are morphological distinctions in the first and second person for the dual number, but this distinction is not found in the third person. The pronominal forms of the southern dialect of Badimaya are listed below:
PersonNumberAbsolutiveAccusativeLocativeDativeAllative
1Singularngadhungadhunhangadhulanganangnganangudi
1Dualngalidyangalidyanhangalidyalangalidyang
1Pluralngalimingaliminhangalimilangalimingalimidi
2Singularnhundunhununhanhundulanhunungnhunungudi
2Dualnhuradya
nhubadya
nhubali		nhuranhanhuralanhubadyang
nhurang		nhurangudi
2Pluralnhuraminhuraminhanhurangula
3Singularbalubalunhabalulabalungbalungudi
baludi
3Pluraldhanhadhanhanhadhanhaladhanhungdhanhungudi

There are two demonstrative pronouns a proximal and a distal which are declined as follows. The ablative case is formed by adding a suffix to both the ablative ending and the word gardi 'side.'
CaseProximateDistal
nhinhabanha
Absolutivenhinhabanha
Ergativenhinhalubanhalu
Accusativenhinhanhabanhanha
Dativenhinhawubanhawu
Locativenhinhalabanhala
Allativenhinhadibanhadi
Ablativenhinhagardibanhagardi

There are four interrogative proforms, the nominal referring of which have case paradigms for the absolutive, ergative, locative and dative cases. The dative case has a possessive function.

Language resources

The Bundiyarra Irra Wangga Language Centre has been carrying out work on the Badimaya language since 1993. A sketch grammar of Badimaya was published by Leone Dunn in 1988,, and an English/Badimaya dictionary, illustrated topical dictionary and several children's books were published by Bundiyarra Irra Wangga Language Centre. The last fluent speaker of Badimaya, Mt Magnet elder Ollie George, undertook significant language documentation work between the early 1990s and 2018, in collaboration with Bundiyarra Irra Wangga Language Centre.
An art and language project, Nganang Badimaya Wangga, was collaboratively produced in 2017 by the Irra Wangga Language Centre, with artists from Yamaji Art and Wirnda Barna Artists. The project produced a book of more than 20 stories of Ollie's life entitled Nganang Badimaya Wangga: Yarns with Gami Ollie George, a short video about Ollie by ABC Open Producer Chris Lewis, and an exhibition of the artworks created for the project.