Myfany Turpin

Artfully hidden: Text and rhythm in a central Australian aboriginal song series

Abstract Traditional songs from Central Australia have a text set to an unvarying rhythm, which is in contrast to songs from many other parts of Australia. This has led many researchers to regard text and rhythm of Central Australian Aboriginal songs as ‘two facets of the same structure’. In creating this structure the question is whether the setting of text to rhythm is random and thus non-metrical, or whether it is based on regular alignment of textual features with rhythmic features. If the latter, a further question arises as to what particular features of text align with rhythm. In this article I show that the setting of text to rhythm is sensitive to syllable structure of spoken language in a public womens song series from Central Australia called Akwelye.

The Spotted Nightjar Calls When Dingo Pups Are Born: Ecological and Social Indicators In Central Australia

Abstract Across cultures there are known signs that signal the availability of certain foods, predict the weather or warn people of impending events. In Central Australia the call of the spotted nightjar (Eurostopodus argus) signals the time when dingo pups are born. This article identifies indicator events known by speakers of the Arandic languages in Central Australia. Indicator events can be described as the presence or behavior of a particular species or phenomenon that signals some other species or phenomenon. Arandic people group these into five broad domains: indicators of food, water, weather, danger and news (e.g., an imminent visitor). A diverse range of ecological, meteorological and human (bodily) phenomena serve as indicators, with birds being the most prevalent. This study explores the basis of indicator events, finding both an ecological and cultural basis for many signs. It also draws attention to the significance of the indicator relationship in terms of how people make sense of co-occurring events around them. We also consider some implications for natural resource management and phenology.

Semantic Extension in Kaytetye Flora and Fauna Terms

Flora and fauna play a vital role in Indigenous cultures and their nomenclature reveals much about the society from which they belong. This article identifies the lexical structures and types of metaphor and metonymy that are used for naming plants and animals in Kaytetye, a language of central Australia. By linking semantic analysis to detailed ethnography this paper elucidates the cultural connections that underlie polysemous biota terms. Various types of semantic extension are found, including ‘sign metonymy’, where two or more species share a name because one signals the availability of the other. A subtype of this is what I call ‘meaningful call’ metonymy. This is where an onomatopoeic bird name has lexical content, and thus the bird ‘says’ the signalled phenomena. The paper also finds that alternate register terms turn up in everyday words for biota. The aim of this paper is thus twofold: to demonstrate the importance of investigating socio-cultural practices, multiple speech registers and ecological phenomena for understanding patterns of polysemy and diachronic semantics; and to identify the range of semantic extensions that give rise to biota nomenclature in Kaytetye, where we find the previously undescribed ‘meaningful call’ metonymy.

If You Go Down to the Soak Today: Symbolism and Structure in an Arandic Children's Story

In an Aboriginal children’s story from Central Australia, small creatures such as dragon lizards and ground-dwelling insect larvae known as ant lions convey rich symbolic meanings. This article analyzes the story, song, and graphic schema of a story that reinforces the dangers of being alone and the unpredictable incarnations of malevolent characters. By comparing versions in several Arandic languages, we elucidate the network of social and cultural meanings of the story and the poetic and artistic devices used to express them. We suggest that formalized children’s “play” routines such as this story perform an important role in socialization in Arandic society.

Edge Effects in Warlpiri Yawulyu Songs: Resyllabification, Epenthesis, Final Vowel Modification

Song genres vary as to which aspects of language and music are matched to create a well-formed song. For example, English folk songs match stressed syllables to strong musical beats. Some song styles have no requirements on how language and music should align. This article analyses how text and music align in Warlpiri womens songs from central Australia and finds there are ‘text-setting’ rules for setting text to musical rhythm. We first identify the formal units of the text and music and then account for their combination by two matching rules. In Warlpiri, text-setting involves matching each syllable to one metrical (rhythmic) position and aligning phonological phrase edges with bar edges. Linguistic units smaller than the phrase, such as those in reduplications and other polymorphemic words, require no such alignment. Alignment is often met through lengthening the right edge of a phrase, which often results in a distortion of the patterns of syllabic prominence in speech. Preferred structures for both text and music can lead to variations of a song based on a reordering of these preferences. This can be exploited to restructure songs when words must be avoided for social reasons.

The language of song: Some recent approaches in description and analysis

Singing is an activity that happens in every society. But the ways that texts and music align with each other and the ways meanings are conveyed, and how the activity fits into larger contexts vary considerably from society to society. The study of song draws in not only the discipline of musicology but also many fields of linguistic inquiry*phonology, poetics, morphology, semantics and pragmatics. Like words and morphemes, songs are form-meaning units to be included in any complete language description. The papers in this volume reveal songs to be highly structured art forms that have the ability to convey complex associations of meaning beyond everyday spoken language. The papers arise from a workshop that aimed to explore the linguistic features of song in a cross-disciplinary context with a view to strengthening ties between linguists, musicologists and anthropologists working in this field. The papers relate to two main areas of investigation: (i) the formal properties of song; and (ii) the meanings of songs. The formal properties of song involve at the least, a textual component and a musical component. The text may be subject to constraints; it may draw on words from a limited vocabulary, require a set number of syllables per line or a rhyme in particular positions. The musical component too is usually organized within a set tonal structure and rhythmic meter, and can also involve significant contrasts in tempo, dynamic range and voice quality. Accompanying instrumentation may also be part of the musical structure of song. Song may also

Edible Insect Larvae in Kaytetye: Their Nomenclature and Significance

Insects have traditionally constituted an important source of food in many cultures, but changes in dietary practices and other lifestyle traits are threatening the transmission of insect-related knowledge and vocabulary to younger generations of Indigenous Australians. This paper describes the rich cultural and culinary traditions surrounding an important insect group, namely a class of edible insect larvae consumed by a desert community in central Australia. Twenty-nine different edible insect larvae are named in the Kaytetye language, with the names encoding the identity of the host plant on which the larvae are found. We describe the complexities involved in the naming system, paying special attention to cultural and linguistic factors. The difficulties in the scientific identification of these ethnotaxa are discussed, as are the significance of our data to (1) questions of universal patterns in ethnoclassification and nomenclature and (2) the purported lack of binomially-labeled folk species in the languages of hunter-gatherer societies.

Contrastive and Non-contrastive Pre-stopping in Kaytetye

Kaytetye is one of the few Australian languages for which pre-stopping is contrastive for nasals. This paper provides the first quantitative data on the phonetic realization of contrastive pre-stopping for any Australian language. It also provides data on the hitherto unreported non-contrastive pre-stopping of laterals in Kaytetye. The findings demonstrate that contrastive nasal pre-stopping and non-contrastive lateral pre-stopping differ on three parameters: (a) the conditioning on the distribution of plain vs. pre-stopped realizations; (b) the comparative overall durations of pre-stopped realizations compared to plain realizations; and (c) the duration of pre-stopping.

Sustaining women's yawulyu/awelye: Some practitioners' and learners' perspectives

In 2010 the authors visited various Central Australian communities, including Willowra, Tennant Creek, Alekarenge, Barrow Creek and Ti Tree, to interview some of our research collaborators past and present about how they saw the present and future of their yawulyu/awelye traditions. Yawulyu (in Warlpiri and Warumungu) and Awelye (in Kaytetye and other Arandic languages) are cognate names for womens country-based rituals, including songs, dancing, ritual objects and knowledge surrounding particular country and Dreaming stories. In the course of our research we spoke to women from different communities, different age groups, different language groups, and different clans, seeking to open discussion about past and contemporary practices of learning, performing and teaching this performance-based knowledge, to help us understand what the practitioners saw as the most fruitful ways of sustaining the traditions, as well as what difficulties they saw in their way. In this article we present statements from many of the women interviewed, highlighting the key issues that emerged and discussing the importance of recordings and other documentation of performances for the future sustainability of the various yawulyu/awelye traditions discussed.

Rapikwenty: ‘A loner in the ashes’ and other songs for sleeping

Rapikwenty is a traditional Australian Indigenous set of stories-and-songs from the Utopia region of Central Australia performed by Anmatyerr speaking adults to lull children to sleep. The main protagonist is a boy who is left to play alone in the ashes. Like many lullabies, Rapikwenty is characterised by scary themes, soft dynamics, a limited pitch range and repetition. The story-and-song form is not common in the Australian literature on lullabies, yet such combinations of prose and verse are found in other forms of verbal art of the region (Green 2014). This verbal art style is also well-attested in other oral traditions of the world (Harris & Reichl, 1997). Rapikwenty resembles other Anmatyerr genres in its song structure; yet differs in its performance style. Echoing Trainor et al. (1999: 532), we find it is the “soothing, smooth, and airy” delivery, rather than any formal properties of the genre, that achieves the lulling effect. In addition, Rapikwenty uses the recitative style known as arnwerirrem ‘humming’. The voice thus moves seamlessly between spoken story and sung verse, creating a smooth delivery throughout. We suggest that the combination of prose and verse reflects an Anmatyerr concept of song as prototypically punctuating events in a story rather than a medium for story-telling itself. This article suggests a more nuanced approach to the relationship between genre and performance styles.