Recently, the Diyari language blog, which aims to support the Diyari language spoken in northern South Australia, passed its eighth anniversary (the first post was on 15th February 2013). During these eight years we have had almost 15,000 visitors and almost 31,000 page views (see summary statistics below), with users visiting from all over the world. The most popular post by far (with 6,580 views since it was published in August 2018) is Ngayani Australiamara, which presents a Diyari translation of the chorus of the popular song ‘I am Australian’, written in 1987 by Bruce Woodley and Dobe Newton. Not bad, for an Aboriginal language of South Australia!
Today, we are starting a new series of blog posts called Kararaya Yawarra — Word of the Week, which will be published roughly on a weekly basis, and discuss the meaning and use of a given Diyari word, including its cultural significance where appropriate. We begin with thaparna, which corresponds to the English verb ‘to drink’, however its range of meaning and uses is broader and it can also mean ‘to suck, kiss, slurp, eat’ — in Diyari thaparna is used for eating soft or semi-liquid food and fruit, in contrast to thayirna, which is used for eating hard foods like meat, bread, or hard fruit and vegetables. Notice that you can also parru thaparna ‘to kiss a fish’ in Diyari, a traditional practice that is described in the blog post.
Visit the site each week for more words and expressions!
Diyari language blog site statistics
| Year | Visitors | Views |
| 2013 | 1500 | 4556 |
| 2014 | 1662 | 4025 |
| 2015 | 1515 | 3440 |
| 2016 | 1274 | 2791 |
| 2017 | 1218 | 2543 |
| 2018 | 1230 | 2648 |
| 2019 | 2075 | 4012 |
| 2020 | 3966 | 6042 |
| 2021 | 523 | 876 |
| Total | 14,963 | 30,933 |