Bardi by Catherine Sheard

Introduction

Bardi is part of the Nyulnyulan language family and is the traditional language of the Bardi people, who live in and around One Arm Point and the Lombadina/Djarrindjin Aboriginal Communities, along the coast of Australia’s Kimberley Region. Although about a thousand people identify as Bardi, only a handful of people can be considered fluent speakers of the Bardi language.

The Problem

In the diagram of the scene (below), note that both you and the speaker are facing the paper. The bird is to the left of everything else and the kangaroo is to the right of everything else. The cat is behind everything else and the kangaroo is in front of everything else.

The Questions

Here are some Bardi sentences describing the diagram:

1. aamba bornkony yaawardon
2. baawa joorroonggony garrabalgoon
3. boorroo alaboor yaawardon
4. iila alaboor ooranygoon
5. iila baybirrony aambon
6. minyaw baybirrony baawon
7. oorany joorroonggony baawon
8. yaawarda bornkony aambon

Fill in the blanks below as much as possible. One row in the table will remain without an equivalent Bardi translation. The missing translation is aarlgoodony in Bardi.

English	Bardi
bird	garrabal
child	baawa
cat
dog
horse
kangaroo
man
woman
next to
behind
in front of
to the right of
to the left of

Acknowledgements

Original puzzle by Catherine Sheard for NACLO 2012 (N2012-F).