Chapter 1: Ngaygu riyala...
Yaru! Hello! Welcome to your first Gudjal lesson of this course. In this chapter, we'll be learning to introduce ourselves. Gudjal birraya ngali. Let's talk Gudjal together.
Dialogue
Gudjal
(Or click on any line of dialogue to hear just that line.)
| Keesha: | Yaru! |
| William: | Yaru! |
| Keesha: | Ngani yinda? |
| William: | Ngaya William. Ngani yinu riyala? |
| Keesha: | Ngaygu riyala Keesha. Ngani yinu yaguy? |
| William: | Ngaygu yaguy Gurrguru. Ngani yinu yaguy? |
| Keesha: | Ngaygu Wudhurrayngan. |
English
| Keesha: | Hello! |
| William: | Hello! |
| Keesha: | Who are you? |
| William: | I'm William. What's your name? |
| Keesha: | My name is Keesha. What is your skin? |
| William: | My skin is Gurrguru. What is yours? |
| Keesha: | Mine is Wudhurrayngan. |
Word List
Click on a vocabulary item to hear how it's pronounced.
| Yaru | Hello / here / this |
| Ngani | Who / what |
| Yinda | You |
| Ngaya | I |
| Yinu | Your |
| Ngaygu | My |
| Riyala | Name / tooth |
| Yaguy | Skin |
Grammar
Ngaya...
You might have noticed that Ngaya William direct translates to "I William". The same thing for ngani yinda "who you?". In Gudjal, we use two words, but in English we use three. This is completely natural and normal for Gudjal speakers. We don't need to say "am", "are" or "is" to understand what people mean.
Vocabulary
Yaru
As you can see above, yaru means lots of different things. Yaru originally only meant "here" or "this". Gudjal probably didn't have a word exactly like "hello" before colonisation. But nowadays, people like to start conversations with "hello", so we needed to choose a Gudjal word that meant something similar.
It might seem a bit strange to choose the word "here" to mean "hello", but Elder Freddie Toomba gave us this information about the word yaru.
Transcript: "Yeah, you come to a town, you see that fella, you say... you sing out: Yaru! Yaru means: I'm here."
When you think about it, that's what the word "hello" does, too. You're telling people that you're here and you're ready to start talking.
Riyala
In Gudjal, we didn't originally have a record for "name". It was lost. Luckily, in lots of Aboriginal languages in Queensland, the word for "name" is the same word for "tooth". We have a word for "tooth" in Gudjal. It's riyala. It's likely that riyala also meant name for Gudjal people.
Yaguy
In lots of Aboriginal cultures, everyone belongs to a skin group. Your skin group depends on the skin group of your parents. It tells people about your relationship to other people in the community. Traditionally, it also told you who it would be best to marry.
Yaguy means skin in Gudjal (the skin on your body). In English, and some Aboriginal languages, skin (body) and skin (group) are the same word. This probably wasn't the case in Gudjal. Unfortunately, we don't have a record of a generic term for skin group in any nearby languages. So, for now, to talk about social groups in Gudjal culture, we're using the term that Aboriginal people already know and use in English: skin.
Practice Activities
Classroom Activity
Grab a partner and practice introducing yourselves in Gudjal. Don't worry if you don't have a skin group. Just focus on asking and telling each other your names.
