Yanggal

The Yanggal (Yangkaal) are an indigenous Australian people of area of the Gulf of Carpentaria in the state of Queensland.

Language

The Yanggal language was called Yanggaralda,.[1] Geoffrey O'Grady grouped it as a variety of Yukulta within the Tangkic language family.[lower-alpha 1] The implication was that 'Yanggal' was simply an alternative name for 'Njangga', which is an alternate ethnonym for the Yanyula (Yanyuwa), from which it has been thought, the Yanggal may have derived.[3]

Country

The Yanggal work over 300 square miles (780 km²) of land, both on Forsyth Island and the stretch of coastline opposite, on the mainland, running as far west as Cliffdale Creek mainland opposite.

Much of the continental coastland used by the Yanggal was mangrovial.

Social organization

The Yanggal were composed of at least three hordes:

• The Djo:ara. (Beche-de-Mer Camp and Bayley (Robert) Island.)
• Laraksnja:ra. (eastern part of Forsyth Island.)
• Mara'kalpa. (western side of Forsyth Island.)
• A clan once resident on Denham Island.[1]

History of contact

The Yanggal eventually moved to Mornington Island, where Arthur Capell briefly interviewed one informant, and obtained information, some of which turned out to be unreliable. He was told that their name for their homeland on Forsyth Island was Nemi from which he deduced that their language was Nemarang..[4] This misapprehension was corrected by Tindale who explained that this term was the personal name of a Yanggal known on a mission as Edward Nemie, the latter being a distortion of the missionary's word 'name'.[1][lower-alpha 2]

Alternative names

• Njanggad.
• Janggaral.
• Janggura.
• Janggaralda.
• Jangaralda. (Lardil exonym)
• Nemarang (recent autonym formed from the English word 'name')
• Balumbant. ('westerners' as opposed to Lilumbant, used of the Lardiil and Yokula).[1]

Some words

• bidinaŋga. (man)
• magudaŋga. (woman)
• ganda. (father)
• ŋama. (mother).[6]

Notes

1. 'Tangkic Group Jakula-Njangga (Yanggal, Nyangga).'[2]
2. 'In 1960 on the highest authority, one of the oldest living Janggal men of Forsyth Island, I learned that Nemarang was not their name. Shortly after the Mornington Island Mission was founded and before the Reverend Wilson was killed by the aborigines, he gave names to many of the natives including Old William, the elder of the Lardiil. Djungidjarudau, father of Edward Namie, on a visit to the new Mission, heard of the new names, asked for and was given a name that he forgot after he went back to his island. The word "name" stuck with him, however, and later it crept into mission records as Namie, hence his son's second name.'[5]

Citations

1. Tindale 1974, p. 170.
2. O'Grady, Voegelin & Voegelin 1966, p. 54.
3. Dixon & Blake 1983, p. 193.
4. Capell 1942, pp. 49–50.
5. Tindale 1974, p. 155.
6. Capell 1942, p. 50.

Sources

• "AIATSIS map of Indigenous Australia". AIATSIS.
• Capell, Arthur (September 1942). "Languages of Arnhem Land, North Australia (Continued)". Oceania. 13 (1): 24–50. JSTOR 40327973.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Dixon, Robert M. W.; Blake, Barry J., eds. (1983). Handbook of Australian Languages. Volume 3. John Benjamins Publishing. ISBN 978-9-027-22005-9.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• O'Grady, Geoffrey; Voegelin, C. F.; Voegelin, F. M. (February 1966). "Languages of the World: Indo-Pacific Fascicle Six". Anthropological Linguistics. 8 (2): 1–197. JSTOR 30029431.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Tindale, Norman Barnett (1974). "Janggal (QLD)". Aboriginal Tribes of Australia: Their Terrain, Environmental Controls, Distribution, Limits, and Proper Names. Australian National University Press. ISBN 978-0-708-10741-6.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)