The Oxford Guide to Australian Languages is a wide-ranging reference work that explores the more than 550 traditional and new Indigenous languages of Australia. Australian languages have long played an important role in diachronic and synchronic linguistics and are a vital testing ground for linguistic theory. Until now, however, there has been no comprehensive and accessible guide to the their vast linguistic diversity. This volume fills that gap, bringing together leading scholars and junior researchers to provide an up-to-date guide to all aspects of the languages of Australia. The chapters in the book explore typology, documentation, and classification; linguistic structures from phonology to pragmatics and discourse; sociolinguistics and language variation; and language in the community. The final part offers grammatical sketches of a selection of languages, sub-groups, and families. At a time when the number of living Australian languages is significantly reduced even compared to twenty year ago, this volume establishes priorities for future linguistic research and contributes to the language expansion and revitalization efforts that are underway.
Detailed contents Series preface Abbreviations and conventions The contributors Language maps Australian language families and linguistic classifications Kado Muir: Foreword 1: Claire Bowern: Introduction Part I: Background 2: Clara Stockigt: A history of the early description of Australian languages 3: Nicholas Thieberger: Documentation of Australian languages 4: Rachel Nordlinger: Australian languages and syntactic theory 5: Luisa Miceli and Claire Bowern: Australian languages and interdisciplinary approaches to the past 6: Clara Stockigt: Nineteenth-century classifications of Australian languages 7: Claire Bowern: How many languages are and were spoken in Australia? 8: John Giacon and Harold Koch: Philological methods for Australian languages Part II: Structures A: Phonetics and phonology 9: Marija Tabain: Articulatory and acoustic phonetics 10: Erich R. Round: Segment inventories 11: Erich R. Round: Phonotactics 12: Erich R. Round: Morphophonology: Lenition and assimilation 13: Erich R. Round: Nasal cluster dissimilation 14: Kathleen Jepson and Thomas Ennever: Lexical stress 15: Janet Fletcher: Intonation 16: Barry Alpher: Sound change B: Morphosyntax 17: Oliver Shoulson: Word classes 18: Dana Louagie: The noun phrase 19: Amalia Skilton: Noun classes 20: Vivien Dunn and Felicity Meakins: Ergativity 21: Jane Simpson: Semantic case 22: Maïa Ponsonnet: Possession 23: Dana Louagie: Demonstratives 24: Alice Gaby and Oliver Shoulson: Pronouns 25: Juhyae Kim: Adjectives and adverbs 26: David Osgarby and Claire Bowern: Complex predication and serialization 27: Harold Koch: Conjugation classes 28: Parker Brody: Agreement morphology 29: Erich R. Round and Xavier Bach: Suppletion 30: Stef Spronck: Valency change and causation 31: Alice Gaby: Reflexives and reciprocals 32: James Bednall: Tense and aspect 33: James Bednall: Modality and mood 34: Josh Phillips: Negation 35: Magda Andrews-Hoke and Parker Brody: Word order 36: Juhyae Kim and Claire Bowern: Questions 37: Marie-Elaine van Egmond: Subordination 38: Rachel Hendery: Relative clauses 39: Jessica Denniss: Antipassives 40: Barry Alpher and Claire Bowern: Morphological change C: Semantics, pragmatics, and discourse 41: Margit Bowler and Ivan Kapitonov: Quantification 42: Dorothea Hoffmann: Direction and location 43: Patrick McConvell: Kinship, marriage, and skins 44: Katherine Rosenberg, Jane Simpson, and Claire Bowern: Toponyms 45: Joe Blythe and Ilana Mushin: Discourse and social interaction 46: Francesca Merlan: Narrative 47: Maïa Ponsonnet: Interjections 48: Michael Walsh: Insults and compliments 49: Katherine Rosenberg and Claire Bowern: Language names Part III: Sociolinguistics and language variation 50: Jennifer Green, Inge Kral, and Sally Treloyn: The verbal arts in Indigenous Australia 51: John Mansfield: Sociolinguistic variation 52: Jennifer Green: Australian Indigenous sign languages 53: John Bradley and Alice Gaby: Gender-based dialects 54: Jill Vaughan: Multilingualism 55: Amanda Hamilton-Hollaway: Code-switching 56: Denise Angelo: Language contact 57: Greg Dickson: Kriol 58: Carmel O'Shannessy: Young people's varieties 59: Michael Walsh: Restricted respect registers and auxiliary languages 60: Lucinda Davidson, Barbara Kelly, Gillian Wigglesworth, and Rachel Nordlinger: Language input and child-directed speech Part IV: Language in the Community 61: Rob Amery: Language policy, planning, and standardization 62: Gillian Wigglesworth and Samantha Disbray: Indigenous children's language practices in Australia 63: Catherine Bow: Technology for Australian languages 64: Maryanne Gale: Language revival 65: Rob Amery and Maryanne Gale: Language, land, identity, and well-being Part V: Structural sketches of languages, subgroups, and families 66: Denise Angelo: Contact language case studies 67: Nicholas Evans and Alexandra Marley: The Gunwinyguan languages 68: Marie-Elaine van Egmond: Anindilyakwa 69: Stef Spronck: Languages of the Kimberley region 70: Margaret Carew and David Felipe Guerrero Beltran: The Maningrida languages 71: K. Eira: Living languages of Victoria 72: Jean-Christophe Verstraete: Lamalamic (Paman) 73: Margaret Sharpe: The Bandialangic languages and dialects 74: Denise Smith-Ali, Sue Hanson, George Hayden, Claire Bowern, Akshay Aitha, Lydia Ding, and Sarah Mihuc: Noongar 75: Sarah Babinski, Luis-Miguel Rojas-Berscia, and Claire Bowern: The Wati (Western Desert) subgroup of Pama-Nyungan 76: Felicity Meakins, Thomas Ennever, David Osgarby, Mitchell Browne, and Amanda Hamilton-Hollaway: Ngumpin-Yapa languages 77: Doug Marmion: Wajarri 78: Annie Reynolds and Theresa Sainty: The revitalization of the sleeping Tasmanian Aboriginal languages: palawa kani References Index
Claire Bowern, Professor of Linguistics, Yale University
Reviews for The Oxford Guide to Australian Languages
Bowern and her seventy-six contributors (fifty-five of them based in Australian institutions) masterfully deliver on the book's promise advanced in several thoughtfully detailed introductory chapters exploring both the historical landscape and taxonomies of these languages (both old and new) and the intricacies of documentation methods that aim to preserve them [...] Moreover, the Guide goes the extra mile to correct widespread misconceptions stemming from broad over-generalisations about the capabilities and characteristics of Indigenous languages, ensuring that they are presented in an authentic light and given just representation. * Thomas Poulton, Australian Book Review *
