Pintupi () is an
Australian Aboriginal
Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait I ...
language. It is one of the
Wati languages
The Wati languages are the dominant Pama–Nyungan languages of central Australia. They include the moribund Wanman language and the Western Desert dialect continuum
A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties sp ...
of the large
Pama–Nyungan family. It is one of the varieties of the
Western Desert Language (WDL).
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 ...
is a variety of the
Western Desert Language spoken by
indigenous
Indigenous may refer to:
*Indigenous peoples
*Indigenous (ecology), presence in a region as the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention
*Indigenous (band), an American blues-rock band
*Indigenous (horse), a Hong Kong racehorse ...
people whose traditional lands are in the area between
Lake Macdonald
Lake Macdonald (Pintupi: Karrkurutinyja) is an ephemeral lake that straddles the border between Western Australia and the Northern Territory. It lies south of Lake Mackay, and south-west of Kintore, Northern Territory. Lying in country inhabited ...
and
Lake Mackay
Lake Mackay, known as Wilkinkarra to the Indigenous Pintupi people, is the largest of hundreds of ephemeral salt lakes scattered throughout the Pilbara and northern parts of the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia and the Norther ...
, stretching from
Mount Liebig in the Northern Territory to
Jupiter Well (west of
Pollock Hills) in Western Australia. These people moved (or were forced to move) into the indigenous communities of
Papunya
Papunya ( Pintupi-Luritja: ''Warumpi'') is a small Indigenous Australian community roughly northwest of Alice Springs (Mparntwe) in the Northern Territory, Australia. It is known as an important centre for Contemporary Indigenous Australian art ...
and
Haasts Bluff
Haasts Bluff, also known as Ikuntji, is an Aboriginal Australian community in Central Australia, a region of the Northern Territory. The community is located in the MacDonnell Shire local government area, west of Alice Springs. At the 2006 ce ...
in the west of the
Northern Territory
The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory shares its borders with Western Aust ...
in the 1940s–1980s. The
last Pintupi people to leave their traditional lifestyle in the desert came into
Kiwirrkura
Kiwirrkurra, gazetted as Kiwirrkurra Community, is a small community in Western Australia in the Gibson Desert, east of Port Hedland and west of Alice Springs. It had a population of 165 in 2016, mostly Aboriginal Australians.Australian Burea ...
in 1984. Over recent decades they have moved back into their traditional country, setting up the communities of
Kintore (in Pintupi known as ) in the Northern Territory,
Kiwirrkura
Kiwirrkurra, gazetted as Kiwirrkurra Community, is a small community in Western Australia in the Gibson Desert, east of Port Hedland and west of Alice Springs. It had a population of 165 in 2016, mostly Aboriginal Australians.Australian Burea ...
and
Jupiter Well (in Pintupi ) in Western Australia.
Children who were born in Papunya and Haasts Bluff grew up speaking a new variety of Pintupi, now known as Pintupi-Luritja, due to their close contact with speakers of
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 ...
,
Warlpiri and other varieties of the WDL. This has continued through the moves west so that most Pintupi people today speak Pintupi-Luritja, although there remains a clear distinction between the more western and eastern varieties.
Pintupi is one of the healthier
Aboriginal languages and is taught to local children in schools.
Phonology
The phonology of Pintupi has been described by K. C. and L. E. Hansen based on fieldwork conducted in
Papunya, Northern Territory
Papunya ( Pintupi-Luritja: ''Warumpi'') is a small Indigenous Australian community roughly northwest of Alice Springs (Mparntwe) in the Northern Territory, Australia. It is known as an important centre for Contemporary Indigenous Australian ar ...
in 1967–1968.
Consonants
Pintupi has 17
consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wi ...
phonemes. The symbols used in the practical orthography are shown in brackets where they differ from the IPA symbols.
The lamino-alveolars are frequently
palatalised, and often has an
affricated allophone
In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor '' phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in '' ...
.
The trill usually has a single contact (i.e. a
flap
Flap may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* ''Flap'' (film), a 1970 American film
* Flap, a boss character in the arcade game ''Gaiapolis''
* Flap, a minor character in the film '' Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland''
Biology and he ...
) in ordinary speech, but multiple contacts (a true trill) in slow, emphatic, or angry speech. The retroflex approximant may also be realised as a flap .
Hansen and Hansen (1969) refer to the
retroflex consonant
A retroflex ( /ˈɹɛtʃɹoːflɛks/), apico-domal ( /əpɪkoːˈdɔmɪnəl/), or cacuminal () consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the h ...
s as "apico-domal".
Vowels
Pintupi has six vowel phonemes, three long and three short. All are
monophthong
A monophthong ( ; , ) is a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation. The monophthongs can be contrasted with diphthongs, wh ...
al at the phonemic level. Again, the symbols used in the practical orthography are shown enclosed in brackets where they differ from the phonemic symbols.
The short vowel phonemes are
devoiced
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced.
The term, however, is used to refer ...
when word-final at the end of a clause, as in 'he finally (came) to camp', 'we all (brought) water for him', and 'it was close'.
Short vowels are
rhotacised before retroflex consonants, as in 'tree (generic)', 'spear (one type)', and 'a shelter'.
The open vowel is diphthongised to and before and respectively, as in 'pare (it)' and 'cold ashes'.
Orthography
An orthography was developed by the Hansens and is used in their publications, which include a dictionary, a grammar sketch and bible portions. This orthography is also used in the bilingual school, and especially in the school's Literature Production Centre. The orthography is shown in the above tables of consonants and vowels.
Phonotactics
Pintupi has only two possible syllable types: CV (a consonant followed by a vowel) and CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant). In the middle of a word, and may appear in the
syllable coda only when followed by a
homorganic plosive, as in 'left side' and 'mouse'. Otherwise, only coronal sonorants may appear in the syllable coda. All consonants except the apico-alveolars and may appear in word-initial position; only coronal sonorants (except ) may appear in word-final position. However, at the end of a clause, the syllable is added to consonant-final words, so consonants may not appear in clause-final position.
Short vowels may appear anywhere in the word; long vowels may appear only in the first syllable (which is stressed), as in 'eagle' and 'ignorant'.
Phonological processes
When a suffix-initial follows a root-final consonant, the
assimilates in
place of articulation
In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a consonant is a location along the vocal tract where its production occurs. It is a point where a constriction is made between an active and a passive articula ...
to the preceding consonant, as in → 'younger sibling (transitive subject)', → 'at the spirit ground'. However, the sequence undergoes
coalescence
Coalescence may refer to:
* Coalescence (chemistry), the process by which two or more separate masses of miscible substances seem to "pull" each other together should they make the slightest contact
* Coalescence (computer science), the merging of ...
and surfaces as simple , as in → 'at Tjintar'.
When two identical CV sequences meet at a word boundary, they undergo
haplology
Haplology (from Greek "simple" and , "speech") is, in spoken language, the elision (elimination or deletion) of an entire syllable through dissimilation (a differentiating shift that affects two neighboring similar sounds). The phenomenon was ...
and fuse into a single word in rapid speech, as in → 'climbed into the car' and → 'went around the middle'. When a lamino-alveolar consonant or is followed by in the last syllable of a word, and the next word begins with , the word-initial is deleted and the two adjacent -sounds merge into a long , as in → 'they all came' and → 'not west'.
Prosody
Pintupi words are
stress
Stress may refer to:
Science and medicine
* Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition
* Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...
ed on the first syllable. In careful speech, every second syllable after that (i.e. the third, fifth, seventh, etc.) may receive a secondary stress, but secondary stress never falls on the final syllable of the word, as in 'for the benefit of Tjakamara' and 'because of mother-in-law'. However, the particle (which indicates a change of subject) is not stressed when it is the first
morpheme
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 are ...
in a clause, as in '(he) went'.
Works in the language
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Pintupi-Luritja became the first Indigenous Australian language to receive a full, official translation of the ''
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, ...
'', when it was translated by elders and linguists at the
Australian National University
The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies an ...
in 2015. Below is Article 1 in Pintupi-Luritja:
[https://www.omniglot.com/writing/pintupi.htm]
See also
*
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 ...
*
Bindibu Expedition
*
List of Indigenous Australian group names
This list of Australian Aboriginal group names includes names and collective designations which have been applied, either currently or in the past, to groups of Aboriginal Australians. The list does not include Torres Strait Islander peoples, wh ...
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
{{Pama–Nyungan languages, Central
Wati languages
Pintupi
Indigenous Australian languages in Western Australia
Indigenous Australian languages in the Northern Territory
Vulnerable languages