Light Warlpiri is a
mixed language
A mixed language, also referred to as a hybrid language or fusion language, is a type of contact language that arises among a bilingual group combining aspects of two or more languages but not clearly deriving primarily from any single language. ...
of
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
, with indigenous
Warlpiri,
Kriol, and
Standard Australian English as its parent languages. First documented by linguist
Carmel O'Shannessy of the
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...
, it is spoken in the Warlpiri community of
Lajamanu
Lajamanu, formerly known as Hooker Creek Native Settlement or just Hooker Creek, is a small town of the Northern Territory of Australia. It is located around from Katherine and approximately from Darwin. At the 2016 Australian census, Lajama ...
, mostly by people under the age of 40. As of 2013, there were 350 native speakers of Light Warlpiri, although all of the speakers also knew traditional Warlpiri and many speak Kriol and English.
Characteristics
Like other mixed languages, such as
Gurindji Kriol
Gurindji Kriol is a mixed language which is spoken by Gurindji people in the Victoria River District of the Northern Territory (Australia). It is mostly spoken at Kalkaringi and Daguragu which are Aboriginal communities located on the tradit ...
,
Michif
Michif (also Mitchif, Mechif, Michif-Cree, Métif, Métchif, French Cree) is one of the languages of the Métis people of Canada and the United States, who are the descendants of First Nations (mainly Cree, Nakota, and Ojibwe) and fur trade wo ...
and
Medny Aleut, Light Warlpiri takes its nominal and verbal systems from different source languages. Most nouns are from Warlpiri or English and take Warlpiri case-marking, but most verbs and the verbal inflection/auxiliary structure are both borrowed and significantly reanalyzed from Kriol and
Australian Aboriginal English
Australian Aboriginal English (AAE or AbE) is a set of dialects of the English language used by a large section of the Indigenous Australian (Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander) population as a result of the colonisation of Aust ...
.
This language is written in
Latin script
The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is a writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae in Magna Graecia. The Gree ...
.
History
Light Warlpiri appears to have originated in the 1980s as a codification and expansion of the Warlpiri/Kriol/English code-switching patterns used in speech directed to young children. The children processed the input they heard as a single system, and added innovations in the verb complex. Within the community, it is perceived as a variety of Warlpiri.
See also
*
Gurindji Kriol
Gurindji Kriol is a mixed language which is spoken by Gurindji people in the Victoria River District of the Northern Territory (Australia). It is mostly spoken at Kalkaringi and Daguragu which are Aboriginal communities located on the tradit ...
References
Citations
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*
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External links
Light Warlpiri DoReCo corpuscompiled by Carmel O'Shannessy. Audio recordings of narrative texts, with transcriptions time-aligned at the phone level and translations.
Ngarrkic languages
English-based pidgins and creoles
Mixed languages
Pidgins and creoles of Australia
1980s in Australia
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