Warlpiri Sign Language, also known as Rdaka-rdaka (''hand signs''),
is a
sign language
Sign languages (also known as signed languages) are languages that use the visual-manual modality to convey meaning, instead of spoken words. Sign languages are expressed through manual articulation in combination with non-manual markers. Sign ...
used by the
Warlpiri, an
Aboriginal community in the central desert region of
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...
. It is one of the most elaborate, and certainly the most studied, of all
Australian Aboriginal sign languages
Many Australian Aboriginal cultures have or traditionally had a manually coded language, a signed counterpart of their oral language. This appears to be connected with various speech taboos between certain kin or at particular times, such as ...
.
Social context
While many neighbouring language groups such as
Arrernte
Arrernte (also spelt Aranda, etc.) is a descriptor related to a group of Aboriginal Australian peoples from Central Australia.
It may refer to:
* Arrernte (area), land controlled by the Arrernte Council (?)
* Arrernte people, Aboriginal Australi ...
and the
Western Desert Language have auxiliary sign languages, Warlpiri Sign Language, along with
Warumungu Sign Language, appears to be the most well developed and widely used — it is as complete a system of communication as spoken Warlpiri. This is possibly due to the tradition that widows should not speak during an extended mourning period which can last for months or even years; during this time they communicate solely by sign language.
In Warlpiri communities, widows also tend to live away from their families, with other widows or young single women. As a result, it is typical for Warlpiri women to have a better command of the sign language than men, and among older women at
Yuendumu
Yuendumu is a town in the Northern Territory of Australia, northwest of Alice Springs on the Tanami Road, within the Central Desert Region local government area. It ranks as one of the larger remote communities in central Australia, and has a ...
, Warlpiri Sign Language is in constant use, whether they are under a speech ban or not.
[Dail-Jones, M. A. (1984). ''A Culture in Motion: A Study of the Interrelationship of Dancing, Sorrowing, Hunting and Fighting as Performed by the Warlpiri Women of Central Australia.'' M.A. Thesis, University of Hawaii, Honolulu.] However, all members of the community understand it, and may sign in situations where speech is undesirable, such as while hunting, in private communication, across distances, while ill, or for subjects that require a special reverence or respect. Many also use signs as an accompaniment to speech.
Linguistics
British linguist
Adam Kendon
Adam Kendon (born in London in 1934, son of Frank Kendon) was one of the world's foremost authorities on the topic of gesture, which he viewed broadly as meaning all the ways in which humans use visible bodily action in creating utterances inclu ...
(1988) argues that Warlpiri Sign Language is best understood as a manual representation of the spoken
Warlpiri language
The Warlpiri ( or ) ( wbp, Warlpiri > waɭbɪ̆ˌɻi language is spoken by about 3,000 of the Warlpiri people from the Tanami Desert, northwest of Alice Springs, Central Australia. It is one of the Ngarrkic languages of the large Pama–N ...
(a
manually coded language
Manually coded languages (MCLs) are a family of gestural communication methods which include gestural spelling as well as constructed languages which directly interpolate the grammar and syntax of oral languages in a gestural-visual form—that ...
), rather than as a separate language; individual signs represent
morphemes
A morpheme is the smallest meaningful constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology.
In English, morphemes are often but not necessarily words. Morphemes that stand alone a ...
from spoken Warlpiri, which are expressed in the same
word order
In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how different languages employ different orders. C ...
as the oral language. However, "markers of
case
Case or CASE may refer to:
Containers
* Case (goods), a package of related merchandise
* Cartridge case or casing, a firearm cartridge component
* Bookcase, a piece of furniture used to store books
* Briefcase or attaché case, a narrow box to ca ...
relations,
tense, and
clitic
In morphology and syntax, a clitic (, backformed from Greek "leaning" or "enclitic"Crystal, David. ''A First Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics''. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1980. Print.) is a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a ...
ised
pronoun
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun ( abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase.
Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not ...
s are not signed." Some spatial grammatical features are present which do not exist in spoken Warlpiri, though spoken Warlpiri incorporates directionals in its verbs, and in such cases sign corresponds to speech.
See also
*
Yolngu Sign Language
References
Further reading
* C.D. Wright (1980) ''Walpiri Hand Talk: An Illustrated Dictionary of Hand Signs used by the Walpiri People of Central Australia.'' Darwin: N.T. Department of Education.
*
Mervyn Meggitt
Mervyn John Meggitt (20 August 1924 – 13 November 2004 New York State) was an Australian anthropologist and one of the pioneering researchers of highland Papua New Guinea and of Indigenous Australian cultures.
Born in Warwick, Queensland and ...
(1954) ''Sign language among the Warlpiri of Central Australia.'' Oceania, 25(1), pp. 2–16 (reprinted (1978) in ''Aboriginal sign languages of the Americas and Australia.'' New York: Plenum Press, vol. 2, pp. 409–423)
*
Adam Kendon
Adam Kendon (born in London in 1934, son of Frank Kendon) was one of the world's foremost authorities on the topic of gesture, which he viewed broadly as meaning all the ways in which humans use visible bodily action in creating utterances inclu ...
(1985) ''Iconicity in Warlpiri Sign language.'' In Bouissac P., Herzfeld M. & Posner R. (eds), Inconicity: Essay on the Nature of Culture . Tübingen: Stauffenburger Verlag.
* A. Kendon (1988) ''Parallels and divergences between Warlpiri sign language and spoken Warlpiri: analyses of signed and spoken discourses.'' Oceania, 58, pp. 239–254.
* A. Kendon (1988) Sign Languages of Aboriginal Australia:Cultural, Semiotic and Communicative Perpsectives. Cambridge University Press
* A. Kendon (1980) The sign language of the women of Yuendumu: A preliminary report on the structure of Warlpiri sign language. Sign Language Studies, 1980 27, 101–112.
* A. Kendon (1984) ''Knowledge of sign language in an Australian Aboriginal community.'' Journal of Anthropological Research. 1984 40, 556–576.
* A. Kendon (1985) ''Variation in Central Australian Aboriginal Sign language: A preliminary report.'' Language in Central Australia, 1(4): 1–11.
* A. Kendon (1987) ''Simultaneous Speaking and Signing in Warlpiri Sign language Users''. Multilingua 1987, 6: 25–68.
* C. P. Mountford (1949) "Gesture language of the Walpari tribe, central Australia" ''Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia'', 73: 100–101.
{{sign language navigation
Australian Aboriginal Sign Language family
Ngarrkic languages
Warlpiri people