Table of Contents
First published as ‘Langage des Kurnu, tribu d’Indigènes de la Nouvelle Galles du Sud’ in Bulletins et Mémoires de la Société d’Anthropologie de Paris, 5 (5th series) (1904), pp. 132-38. The article was written in English and translated into French by Oscar Schmidt. This version was retranslated into English by Mathilde de Hauteclocque.[1]
In a previous article addressed to the society, I dealt with the language of the Wailwan, one of the native tribes of New South Wales.[2] Here, I will attempt to show the grammatical structure of the language of the Kūrnū tribe, who occupy a large territory along the Darling river.
The grammar of the Kūrnū language is one of the most interesting, because it possesses characteristics that I have not observed in any other of the native idioms in New South Wales. Thus, for example, it can be seen in the table of pronouns that their form is modified to express the present, the past and the future. It will also be seen that the pronouns governed by transitive verbs differ from those used with intransitive verbs. Although the present, past and future tense can be expressed within the verb itself, the pronoun suffix can also express tense.
In 1902 I communicated to the Royal Society of New South Wales[3] a summary of Kūrnū grammar, but I omitted the verbs and other details because I did not then understand the difficulties presented by the pronouns and the more uncommon variations they are subjected to in conjunction with the verbs. Since that first, succinct report, a journey to this tribe allowed me to collect much new data.
The territory of the native tribes who speak the Kūrnū language begins on the Darling, between Tilpa and Louth, and extends on both sides of the river, up to Bourke, and a little beyond. It also extends along the Warrego river as far as Ford’s Bridge. Dialects of Kūrnū are spoken all along the Darling downstream from Tilpa, via Wilcannia and Menindie, as far as Wentworth, that is to say for a distance of about 350 miles. The Kūrnū language, with a few dialectal variations, also extends further beyond the Darling River, as far as the Tarowoto lake and the Barrier Ranges and back to the Paroo River, following it as far as the Queensland border. I personally collected the following elements of the language in Kūrnū territory, from reliable and intelligent elders of both sexes.