Today I learned one of the best animal names ever: noolbenger, ‘A small species of nocturnal marsupial, Tarsipes rostratus, of southwest Western Australia.’ It is apparently more commonly called a honey possum, but that’s not nearly as much fun. The OED has it (entry from 2003), with a more descriptive definition:
Chiefly Australian.
The honey possum, Tarsipes rostratus (family Tarsipedidae), a tiny marsupial with a long pointed snout and a prehensile tail that is restricted to south-west Australia and feeds exclusively upon nectar and pollen.
a1845 Nool-boon-goor. Aborigines of King George’s Sound. This little creature inhabits the smaller trees from the blossom of which..it is constantly extracting honey and minute insects.
J. Gilbert in Western Austral. Naturalist (1954) vol. 4 112
[…]1955 Dainty and diminutive.., the honey-mouse or ‘nulbenger’..is what Gilbert White would have termed a seclusive animal.
C. Barrett, Australian Animal Book (ed. 2) viii. 392001 Honey Possum Tarsipes rostratus. Noolbenger… Unmistakable tiny animal with elongated muzzle.
P. Menkhorst & F. Knight, Field Guide to Mammals of Australia 90
Both Wikt and OED say simply that it’s from Nyungar ngulbunggur; my question is: is that word analyzable?
The Noongar form is given as nyuarilpirangar on page 29 here:
I have no idea how reliable this is. Just using my phone, I looked briefly just now for various elements that might figure in a morphological breakdown of nyuarilpirangar and ngulbunggur in some Noongar dictionaries available as pdf’s online—no dice. Maybe other LH readers will have better luck.
Brandenstein, Nyungar Anew (p. 32. Edited for typography):
nʸuar̃ilʸ is the reflexive of nʸuar̃- ‘to tie, bind, join’. I haven’t figured out the other morphemes yet.
BTW Tarsipes is monotypic. T. spenserae is the older name.
BTW 2 Cute critter.
nʸuar̃ilʸ-pii(r̃)än-qär
This is excellent! Thanks for finding that out. Now I can fall asleep easily.
Speaking of Australians:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/01/science/northern-marsupial-mole-australia.html
Swimming Beneath Sand, It’s ‘the Hardest of All Animals to Find’
Indigenous rangers in Australia’s Western Desert got a rare close-up with the northern marsupial mole, which is tiny, light-colored and blind, and almost never comes to the surface
I was wondering how a species from a monotypic genus could have an older name. Was spenserae preoccupied? Wikipedia has the story:
A bit here on von Brandenstein (1909–2005). Studied Hittite, held in Australia as a POW, and upon release decided to stay and became a linguist and anthropologist.
BTW 3, nʸ = [ɲ], r̃ = [ɻ], ä = [æ], q = [q].
Australia is rich in mammals whose names start with n
This is excellent! Thanks for finding that out. Now I can fall asleep easily.
Seconded! Ask and ye shall receive, is my motto. Now maybe the OED can update their etymology.
The Wikipedia article on the language is very confusing. No [q] or [æ] is mentioned anywhere; but the vowel system is given as /i e a o u/ with no mention of length, while the vocabulary examples contain lots of aa…
I’d expect r̃ to be the trill, though, with the tilde symbolizing the vibration. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen that before.
Von Brandenstein’s notation is in some instances idiosyncratic. And he apparently heard [q] from his informants, he says in his introduction to Nyungar Anew.
There is apparently a great deal of variation in language varieties covered by the name Noongar. For all the details, I would recommend LH readers consult Denise Smith-Ali et al., “Noongar”, chapter 94 in Claire Bowern, ed. (2023) The Oxford Guide to Australian Languages.
I don’t know what to make of von Brandenstein’s Nyungar Anew in some respects. From his introduction:
Von Brandenstein says that his nʸuar̃ilʸ-pii(r̃)än-qär is ‘inferred’. So… his own etymologizing preform? I wonder how speculative his inference is. Von Brandenstein’s reference to Tro 81 is to the first paragraph of page 82 in Ellis Troughton (1962) Furred Animals of Australia (available here or here): ‘The quaint little animal had quite a variety of names in the native vocabularies of the south-western tribes, the one favoured as a popular name being “Noolbenger,” and others including “Ait” and “Deed.”’ I gather that von Brandenstein worked with some Noongar speakers, though, so I wonder if his collaborators actually evaluated some his etymologies, or suggested etymological analyses themselves… Unfortunately, it seems that some of von Brandenstein’s diaries or other materials detailing his fieldwork on Noongar have been lost.
I gather that von Brandenstein worked with some Noongar speakers, though, so I wonder if his collaborators actually evaluated some his etymologies, or suggested etymological analyses themselves…
That’s the point I wondered if the “collaborators” got fed up with his pestering and started messin’ abaht.
A list of spellings of the Noongar name for Tarsipes rostratus found in documents from the 19th century onward can be found in Ian Abbott (2001) “Aboriginal names of mammal species in south-west Western Australia”, p. 458 (p. 26 of the pdf), available here. Listed there is an early attestation of the Noongar word in Moore (1842). This comes from the entry here (p. 93) reading: ngulbun-gar (K.G.S.) ‘A species of mouse’. (KGS is King George Sound.)
In any case… Von Brandenstein was apparently the first to describe the CV > VC metathesis occuring in non-initial syllables in the history of some Noongar dialects (OWCD yagu ‘woman’ beside MNFS yauq (yoq); OWCD pilu beside MNFS piül (pel)), and the apparent subsequent repair of the newly consonant-final words by a paragogic vowel in a subset of these dialects. (Some may have alternative analyses…) See p. ix in von Brandenstein for his exposition. These changes are famous in phonological circles. Looking over the original materials relating to these changes has been very interesting for me.
Listed there is an early attestation of the Noongar word in Moore (1842). This comes from the entry here (p. 93) reading: ngulbun-gar (K.G.S.) ‘A species of mouse’. (KGS is King George Sound.)
So the OED needs to update its citations as well as its etymology.
All of this is extremely interesting!
Brandenstein’s book is also available for download from the publisher.
it seems that some of von Brandenstein’s diaries or other materials detailing his fieldwork on Noongar have been lost.
The link I gave above talks about the rediscovery of von Brandenstein’s notes at the Anthropos Institute in Germany.
Brandenstein’s idea, that “Nyungar is an artificial language, produced by a number of clever men, if not by a single individual…” is not viable. True, it’s not out of the question: in the 1980s esoterogeny was described — the process of obscuring the lexicon of a language to make it more distinctive from its near relatives, though not as purposeful language planning by one or a few authorities. However, as odd as the change in Nyungar is, it can and likely did happen organically (as for example in Rotuman). Dench (here) and after him Blevins and Garrett (here, p. 31), show that the change happened in stages, with some dialects progressing further than others.
I wonder how speculative his inference is.
I wondered too. Neighboring words in the dictionary show <nool> in the older sources all corresponding to that root, so I tend to think he was anyhow mostly correct. Brandenstein did spend a decade there and worked with a number of consultants.
I would recommend LH readers consult Denise Smith-Ali et al., “Noongar”
The article is very good (Smith-Ali, btw, is Noongar, and heads their language program.) It is abstracted from Harry Wykman’s 2005 MA dissertation from UWA, A description of Kurinj/Minong Nungar as documented by Gerhardt Laves in his field notes of 1931. Annoyingly, I can’t find it online anywhere, despite UWA saying that it would be. I was hoping to find some clues in it to the morphology in Brandenstein’s etymology.
I’d expect r̃ to be the trill
Pacific Linguistics probably worked with what the standard IBM Selectric balls allowed.
P.S. I just learned that at least some German style conventions omit von at the beginning of a sentence. I like that.
So the OED needs to update its citations — Moore’s dictionary is an attestation of the word in Noongar. For an OED quotation it would have to be used in English.
Moore’s dictionary *is* quoted once in the OED, under bluebill (rev. 2013), as the first use referring to an Australian duck:
Ah, of course you’re right.