A major new website is now available with information and resources for the Diyari language spoken in northern South Australia and western New South Wales. A large part of the more than 24 Mbytes of material published there results from a project (funded by Leverhulme Trust) that Peter K. Austin carried out 2021-2024 to digitise and mark up the 2,180 page English translation of the four volume “Diari-German Dictionary” created by Rev. J.G. Reuther, a German-speaking Lutheran missionary who was in charge of Bethesda mission at Lake Killalpaninna (near Cooper Creek, east of Lake Eyre, South Australia and in Diyari traditional country) from 1888 to 1906. Everything on the website is open access under a creative commons licence.
The resources available on the website are:
- Reuther’s Diyari Dictionary. Rev. J.G. Reuther created a four volume 1,237 page Diyari-German dictionary between 1861 and 1906. This was translated into English by Rev. P. Scherer in 1974 and we are publishing edited and formatted versions of the Dictionary;
- Reuther Dictionary Indexes. There are four indexes for the main dictionary that list glosses (word translations in English), Diyari words, Diyari suffixes (word endings), and Diyari base words (and related forms) in the modern spelling;
- Reuther Dictionary Supplements. We have created seven supplementary documents derived from Reuther’s dictionary, giving additional entries, placenames, comparative wordlists, comparative sentences, names of ancestral beings, and example sentences. These and Reuther’s Dictionary use the mission spelling system. Where words are known to contemporary speakers of Diyari or neighbouring languages they are given in the modern spelling system;
- Dictionary User Guides. There are seven pages that describe the structure of the Reuther Dictionary and the Dictionary Supplements, and how to use them;
- Comparative Vocabulary List. This is a compilation of words for 1,747 English meanings in a range of languages once spoken near Lake Eyre in South Australia that was collected by Rev. J.G. Reuther. The list has never been published before and can be viewed here for the first time. The structure of the list and how it can be used is the same as the Comparative Vocabulary Supplement and is described in this user guide.
- Encyclopedic Diyari-English Dictionary by Peter K. Austin. This is a comprehensive Diyari-English bilingual dictionary with English-Diyari finderlist. It is currently being updated and expanded.
- Reference Grammar of Diyari by Peter K. Austin. This is a description of the structure of the language for linguistic specialists. The most recent version is freely available as a PDF and can be downloaded here.
- References. This is a listing of books, chapters, and articles that have been published about Diyari language and culture.
- Diyari Language Blog. The website called Ngayana Diyari Yawarra Yathayilha ‘We are all speaking Diyari now’ presents news and information about the language and people. The blog began in March 2013 and has a wide range of posts, including Words, Conversations, Songs, Stories, and Language Lessons. Everyone is welcome to visit, and you can leave a comment about any blog post that interests you.
- Diyari Language Podcast. On Spotify there is a podcast called Diyari Yawarra that presents audio recordings of some of the entries from the Diyari Language Blog so that people who are interested can hear what spoken Diyari sounds like.
We welcome comments, feedback and questions about the website and the various publications — users can fill in the form at the bottom of the About page on the website to contact the authors.