Fw: "Murngin" - Word of the Day from the OED

[kevin cummiskey]

Here's evidence our ceo contacted OED or perhaps he may have been inrecuperation and one of our wasted (permenitly) scribes made the call either way the word is novel though totally irrelevent (figures)

--- On Mon, 8/25/08, oedwotd at oup.com <oedwotd at oup.com> wrote:

From: oedwotd at oup.com <oedwotd at oup.com>
Subject: "Murngin" - Word of the Day from the OED
To: OEDWOTD-AMER-L at WEBBER.UK.OUP.COM
Date: Monday, August 25, 2008, 8:30 PM







OED Online Word of the Day
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Murngin, n. and adj.
DRAFT ENTRY Mar. 2008   


Brit. /mngn /, U.S. /mrng ( )n/, Austral. /mngn /  Plural unchanged. [< Yolngu (north-east Arnhem Land) murrnginy shovel-nose spear.
  The word was adopted by W. L. Warner in 1930 as a loose designation for eight tribes in north-east Arnhem Land who share the same kinship system.. He was criticized by other anthropologists for this designation in what became known as the ‘Murngin controversy’, which was responsible for a re-evaluation of anthropological method and standards. In later usage, anthropologists and linguists have preferred to refer to Murngin as Wulamba, Miwuyt, or Yolngu.]  
    A. n. 
    1. A member of any of a group of peoples inhabiting north-east Arnhem Land in northern Australia, now commonly referred to as Yolngu. 
1930 W. L. WARNER in Amer. Anthropologist 32 207 The Murngin are organized into local clan hordes, which are re-grouped into the moieties called Yr--tja and Du-a. 1933 T. T. WEBB in Oceania 3 410, I disagree with Dr. W. Lloyd in his application of the name Murngin generally to hordes of both moieties. 1955 R. M. BERNDT ‘Murngin’ (Wulamba) Social Organization 104 Warner erroneously used the term ‘Murngin’ which is the name of only one clan and should not be used in this sense. 1967 Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 29 482 Nowadays if the Murngin are mentioned at all, it is only because they have become a byword for all that is most arcane and, let it be said, most trivial in social anthropology. 1972 Man 297 16 The Murngin are well aware of the need of copulation to produce conception. 1981 Man 16 103 This is especially true of prescriptive marriage with the MBD, practised among the Murngin, who have puzzled generations of anthropologists. 1994 Man 29 65 Among
 the Murngin of Australia..the vagina is explicitly or symbolically equated to a hunting- or fishing-trap.
    2. The Australian Aboriginal language spoken by the Murngin, now commonly referred to as Yolngu. 
1931 Oceania 1 83 These tribes have patrilineal moieties, named Yididja and Dua in Murngin, and a system of eight sub-sections. 1951 Amer. Anthropologist 53 47 In Yir-Yoront there are totems for father's father or son's son..whereas Murngin has the terms marikmo for father's father and maraitcha for son's son.
    B. adj. (attrib.).    Of, relating to, or designating the Murngin or their language. 
1930 Amer. Anthropologist 32 208 The following are the Murngin terms with their descriptive English equivalents. 1951 Jrnl. Royal Anthropol. Inst. 81 34 To my way of thinking, Radcliffe-Brown is rather over anxious to see the Murngin system as merely a variant of the general Australian pattern. 1967 Royal Anthropol. Inst. Occas. Paper 26 1 There is still something to be learnt from the Murngin controversy, even if it is too late to learn much about the Murngin. 1970 Man 5 484 The Murngin word recorded by Warner for this period, and those who were active during it, is wongar. 1978 Mankind 11 208 My justification for presenting this data is that it may cast a new light on a problem of Yolngu (Murngin) social organisation that has vexed successive generations of anthropologists since the publication of Lloyd Warner's analysis in the 1930s.  
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