Pertame, also known as Southern Arrernte or Southern Aranda, is an Arandic language (but not of the

Arrernte language Arrernte or Aranda (; ) or sometimes referred to as Upper Arrernte (Upper Aranda), is a dialect cluster in the Arandic language group spoken in parts of the Northern Territory, Australia, by the Arrernte people. Other spelling variations a ...

group) from the country south of Alice Springs, along the Finke River, north and north-west of the location inhabited by speakers of Lower Arrernte. '' Ethnologue'' classes Pertame as a variant name for Lower Southern, but other sources vary in their classifications and descriptions of this language.

Language revival

With only 20 fluent speakers left by 2018, the Pertame Project is seeking to retain and revive the language, headed by Pertame elder Christobel Swan. , Pertame is one of 20 languages prioritised as part of the Priority Languages Support Project, being undertaken by First Languages Australia and funded by the Department of Communications and the Arts. The project aims to "identify and document critically-endangered languages — those languages for which little or no documentation exists, where no recordings have previously been made, but where there are living speakers".

Speakers

Renowned artist Erlikilyika (Jim Kite) was a Pertame speaker.

References

Arandic languages Endangered indigenous Australian languages in the Northern Territory {{ia-lang-stub