Ngaatjatjarra (also Ngaatjatjara, Ngaadadjarra) is an
Australian Aboriginal dialect of the
Western Desert language. It is spoken in the
Western Desert cultural bloc
The Western Desert cultural bloc or just Western Desert is a cultural region in central Australia covering about , including the Gibson Desert, the Great Victoria Desert, the Great Sandy and Little Sandy Deserts in the Northern Territory, So ...
which covers about 600 000 square kilometres of the arid central and central-western desert. It is very similar to its close neighbours
Ngaanyatjarra
The Ngaanyatjarra, also known (along with the Pini) as the Nana, are an Indigenous Australian cultural group of Western Australia. They are located in the Goldfields-Esperance region, as well as Northern Territory.
Language
Ngaanyatjarra is a ...
,
Pitjantjatjara
The Pitjantjatjara (; or ) are an Aboriginal people of the Central Australian desert near Uluru. They are closely related to the Yankunytjatjara and Ngaanyatjarra and their languages are, to a large extent, mutually intelligible (all are vari ...
and
Pintupi
The Pintupi are an Australian Aboriginal group who are part of the Western Desert cultural group and whose traditional land is in the area west of Lake Macdonald and Lake Mackay in Western Australia. These people moved (or were moved) into the ...
, with which it is highly mutually intelligible.
Most
Ngaatjatjarra
The Ngaatjatjarra (otherwise spelt Ngadadjara) are an Indigenous Australian people of Western Australia, with communities located in the north eastern part of the Goldfields-Esperance region.
Name
The ethnonym Ngaatjatjarra, in line with a gener ...
live in one of the communities of
Warburton,
Warakurna
Warakurna is a large Aboriginal community, located in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia, within the Shire of Ngaanyatjarraku and is situated on the Great Central Road (part of the Outback Way ultimately connecting Perth to ...
,
Tjukurla or
Docker River
Kaltukatjara , also known as Docker River, is a remote Indigenous Australian community in the Northern Territory of Australia. It is southwest of Alice Springs, west of the Stuart Highway, near the Western Australia and Northern Territory bord ...
.
Origin of the name
The name ''Ngaatjatjarra'' derives from the word ''ngaatja'' 'this' which, combined with the
comitative suffix
In grammar, the comitative case (; abbreviated ) is a grammatical case that denotes accompaniment. In English, the preposition "with", in the sense of "in company with" or "together with", plays a substantially similar role (other uses of "with", l ...
''-tjarra'' means something like ' ''ngaatja''-having'. This distinguishes it from its near neighbour Ngaanyatjarra which has ''ngaanya'' for 'this'.
Sign language
The Ngaada have (or at one point had) a
signed form of their language, though it is not clear from records that it was particularly well-developed compared to other
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 ...
.
[ Kendon, A. (1988) ''Sign Languages of Aboriginal Australia: Cultural, Semiotic and Communicative Perspectives.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press]
References
* DOUSSET Laurent 2002. Politics and demography in a contact situation: The establishment of Giles Meteorological Station in the Rawlinson Ranges, Aboriginal History, 26: 1-22.
* DOUSSET Laurent 2003. On the misinterpretation of the Aluridja kinship system type (Australian Western Desert), Social Anthropology, 11(1): 43-61.
* DOUSSET Laurent 2005. Structure and Substance: Combining ‘Classic’ and ‘Modern’ Kinship Studies in the Australian Western Desert, TAJA, 16(1): 18-30.
* DOUSSET L. 2003. Indigenous modes of representing social relationships: A short critique of the “genealogical concept”, Aboriginal Studies, 2003/1: 19-29.
* GLASS A. & HACKETT D. 2003. Ngaanyatjarra & Ngaatjatjarra to English dictionary. Alice Springs: IAD.
* GOULD R.A. 1968. Living Archaeology: The Ngatatjara of Western Australia, Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, 24(2): 101-122.
* GOULD R.A. 1969. Subsistence behavior among the Western desert Aborigines of Australia, Oceania, 39(4): 253-274.
External links
AusAnthrop database: Ngaatjatjarra*
ttp://elar.soas.ac.uk/deposit/0342 ELAR archive of Western Desert Special Speech Styles Project
Wati languages
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