User:Lindadownunder

Hi, I'm adding information to Wiktionary from my 30 year old copy of a Wong-gie to English Dictionary, originally prepared by Josie and John Boyle.

The dictionary is undated and there is no information about the publisher. However on the acknowledgements page, thanks are given to Mimbarda Lynch, Gay Harris, Dora Cotterill, Sadie Canning, Kathy Trimmer, The Dept of Education, Employment and Training (Canberra), The Department of Health (WA), The Education Department (WA) and the Office of the Family (WA)

The dictionary and my online contribution are intended to preserve the Wong-gu-thu aboriginal language. The area the Wong-gu-thu dialect is spoken in, is known as Yõõll-brud-du and the dialect is Gõõl-bi-rr. This corresponds to the Kalgoorlie-Laverton-Wiluna region on the map of Western Australia.

The Wong-gu-thu dialect is closely related to other western desert dialects e.g.the Ngaanyatjarra dialect of Warburton and the Pitjantjatjara dialect of Docker River.There are several hundred words common to all these desert dialects plus many more with just a slight change in sound. For instance the Wong-gu-thu words that begin with a th, begin with a j sound in the other dialects e.g. mouth is pronounced thaa, but in other dialects jaa; stomach is pronounced thõõn-nee - in other dialects it's pronounced jõõn-nee; mother ngõõn-thoo becomes ngõõn-joo.

Some pidgin or creole words are used in common everyday Wong-gie speech e.g. nuth-thee - nothing; õõ-goo way-noo means going away. A few Wong-gie words are mispronounced but familiar to most West Australians e.g. Karawara, a suburb of Perth, is a mispronounced version of gud-du-wora meaning long hair. Mirrabooka (another suburb of Perth) is from the Wong-gie word Mirraa-boori-gu meaning shout big.

The Aboriginal language has a sound not found in English - the reflex R or rolled R - this is represented by rr in the Wong-gie words on the list. The suffix nhu emphasizes a word e.g. bõõ-ri-gu is big, but bõõ-ri-gu-nhu is really big.