In 1915 the South Australian Museum (SAM) purchased a 14 volume German language manuscript called “The Diari” (catalogued as AA266-09 — for information see here). It had been compiled by the Rev. J.G. Reuther between 1861 and 1906 when he was a Lutheran missionary and manager of Bethesda Mission near Lake Killalpaninna in Dieri traditional country.
Volumes I to IV of the manuscript consist of a 1,237 page Diyari-German dictionary. This was translated into English by Rev. Philipp Scherer in 1974 as a 2,180 page typescript. A digital version was created by Jane Simpson and David Nash in 1989. The dictionary files were edited and corrected by Peter Austin between 1991 and 2000, and in 2014-2015, with support from the Dieri Aboriginal Corporation, David Nathan further edited the files and created an XML-markup version with tags enclosing different types of content. In 2020-2023 Peter Austin and Edward Garrett did further editing and enhancement to produce a range of documents which we are publishing here. There is more information about the history of the Dictionary here and in Austin 2023 (see References).
Dictionary publications
The digitised and edited English translation of Reuther’s dictionary is being published online in two forms:
- ‘specialist’ edition which closely represents Scherer’s translation (with some systematic editorial changes to Scherer’s translation discussed here) and is intended for researchers and specialists. Users are recommended to read the user guide which sets out the structure and format of this edition before viewing or searching it;
- ‘user-friendly’ edition intended for non-specialists and language learners that omits some details and presents a powerful Search capability to find words in English and Diyari, and examples of use. A guide to using this edition can be found on the linked website.
Dictionary indexes
We have generated four indexes for the Specialist edition of the main dictionary so that users can quickly search for items they are interested in. Each index has clickable links to the relevant part of the main dictionary:
- index of word translations — a list of all English translations (glosses) of entries and sub-entries;
- index of word forms — a list of all Diyari words in entries and sub-entries, in the mission spelling;
- index of word endings — a list of all the endings (suffixes) in Diyari in the modern spelling;
- index of word roots — a list of known Diyari words organised by their roots, in the modern spelling, and analysed into their component parts
Dictionary supplements
In addition to the two editions of the main dictionary, we are publishing several secondary documents which are derived from the translation with editorial elaborations:
- Entries Supplement — gives words that do not have a full entry in Reuther’s dictionary and are only found in sub-entries, notes, and examples. Many of the words here are terms for plants and animals, but also include common words for which Reuther simply did not include a full entry in the main dictionary. The structure and format of this Supplement is discussed in its user guide;
- Placenames — gives 55 names for places that occur throughout the Dictionary within Mythology or Notes, with additional information from the available literature or modern sources. The structure and format of the Placenames list is similar to that of the Entries Supplement;
- Comparative Words — gives 157 words and expressions in neighbouring languages taken from the Dictionary and sorted by their English translation. Notes from modern sources on Diyari and the other languages have been added (see here about the format and contents, and how to use this publication). It appears Reuther was including comparisons based on his Comparative Vocabulary List but did not finish adding them to the main dictionary;
- Comparative Sentences — gives 10 sentences translated into neighbouring languages taken from the Dictionary and sorted by their English translation. Notes from modern sources on Diyari and the other languages have been added (for the format, see its user guide). It seems likely that Reuther had collected more such sentence comparisons but they have not survived;
- Ancestral Beings — gives a listing of 533 instances where muramura ‘ancestral beings’ are mentioned in the dictionary. References to the Toas (Volume XII of the Reuther manuscript) are included, based on McEntee (1998), along with other information in the literature. For the format, see its user guide.
- Examples — gives the 3,880 example sentences included in Reuther’s Diyari dictionary. For the format, see its user guide.
These publications include both the mission spelling system and the modern spelling used to write Diyari nowdays.
User guides
We have written guides for users which set out the structure and format of each of the publications listed above, who they are aimed at, and how they can be used.
Feedback
We welcome feedback and comments on any of the 12 publications and the user guides arising from our research on Scherer’s translation of Reuther’s dictionary. Please use the form at the bottom of the Contact page to get in touch.