Pitjantjatjara (; or ) is a

dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that is ...

of the Western Desert language traditionally spoken by the

Pitjantjatjara people 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 ...

of Central Australia. It is mutually intelligible with other varieties of the Western Desert language, and is particularly closely related to the Yankunytjatjara dialect. The names for the two groups are based on their respective words for 'come/go.' Pitjantjatjara is a relatively healthy Aboriginal language, with children learning it. It is taught in some Aboriginal schools. The literacy rate for

first language A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother to ...

speakers is 50–70%; and is 10–15% for second-language learners. There is a Pitjantjatjara

dictionary A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologie ...

, and the

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chris ...

of the Bible has been translated into the language, a project started at the Ernabella Mission in the early 1940s and completed in 2002. Work continues on the

Old Testament The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...

Phonology and orthography

There are slightly different standardised spellings used in 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 ...

and

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to t ...

compared to

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest o ...

, for example with the first two writing between and combinations and a between and , which SA does not use. Pitjantjatjara has the following consonant inventory, orthography shown in brackets: Pitjantjatjara has three vowels: Pitjantjatjara vowels have a length contrast, indicated by writing them doubled. A colon used to be sometimes used to indicate long vowels: , , . Pitjantjatjara orthography includes the following underlined letters, which can be either ordinary letters with underline formatting, or Unicode characters which include a line below: * Ḻ: unicode 1E3A * ḻ: unicode 1E3B * Ṉ: unicode 1E48 * ṉ: unicode 1E49 * Ṟ: unicode 1E5E * ṟ: unicode 1E5F * Ṯ: unicode 1E6E * ṯ: unicode 1E6F The underline represents that the consonant in question is retroflex, rather than alveolar.

Grammar

Some features distinctive to the Pitjantjatjara dialect, as opposed to other Western Desert Language dialects, include ''-pa'' endings to words that simply end in a consonant in other dialects (this is reflective of a general aversion in Pitjantjatjara to words ending with a consonant), and a reluctance to have ''y'' at the beginning of words.

Nouns and noun phrases

Pitjantjatjara uses case marking to show the role of nouns within the clause as subject, object, location, etc. Pitjantjatjara is a language with

split ergativity In linguistic typology, split ergativity is a feature of certain languages where some constructions use ergative syntax and morphology, but other constructions show another pattern, usually nominative–accusative. The conditions in which ergat ...

, since its nouns and pronouns show different case marking patterns. Consider the following example, where the subject of a transitive verb is marked with the ergative case and the object with the

absolutive case In grammar, the absolutive case (abbreviated ) is the case of nouns in ergative–absolutive languages that would generally be the subjects of intransitive verbs or the objects of transitive verbs in the translational equivalents of nominativ ...

: It can be contrasted with the following sentence with an intransitive verb, where the subject takes the absolutive case: In contrast to the ergative-absolutive pattern that applies to nouns, pronouns show a nominative-accusative pattern. Consider the following examples, with pronoun subjects:

Verbs and verb phrases

Pitjantjatjara verbs inflect for tense. Pitjantjatjara has four different classes of verbs, each of which takes slightly different endings (the classes are named according to their imperative suffixes): ∅-class verbs, -class verbs, -class verbs, and -class verbs. See page on grammatical conjugation for examples.

Derivational morphology

It also has systematic ways of changing words from one part of speech to another: making nouns from verbs, and vice versa. However, words formed may have slightly different meanings that cannot be guessed from the pattern alone.

History since European settlement

The Ernabella Mission was established by

Charles Duguid use both this parameter and , birth_date to display the person's date of birth, date of death, and age at death) --> , death_place = Kent Town, Adelaide , resting_place = , resting_place_coordinates = , burial_place = ...

and the Presbyterian Church of Australia in 1937 at the location now known as

Pukatja Pukatja (formerly Ernabella) is an Aboriginal community in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands in South Australia, comprising one of the six main communities on "The Lands" (the others being Amata, Pipalyatjara, Fregon/Kaltjiti, ...

, supported by the South Australian government. The Mission aimed to keep the language and culture alive, with the missionaries learning the language themselves and teaching it in the school as well as delivering sermons in it. This meant that the language became a written language for the first time, and the people became literate in their own language before English.

Bible translations

The first draft of the

's Gospel of Mark, ''Tjukurpa Palja Markaku'', was completed in 1945 by Reverend Bob Love and Ronald Trudinger at the Mission, and was published by the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1949. Work continued over the next 20 years, with publication of a shorter New Testament in 1969 by the

Bible Society Australia Bible Society Australia is an Australian non-profit, non-denominational, Christian organisation. It is part of a worldwide network of Bible Societies. Bible Society Australia maintains that the Bible is a significant historic text which has deepl ...

. Pitjantjatjara Bible Translation Project, incorporated in 1981, completed a new translation of the New Testament and about 15% of the

, first published in 2002. In 2011 a new project to translate the rest of the OT was initiated, working on various OT books. 21st-century Bible Society missionary and local teacher since 1973, Paul Eckert, has worked with elders on the project for many years. The

Book of Daniel The Book of Daniel is a 2nd-century BC biblical apocalypse with a 6th century BC setting. Ostensibly "an account of the activities and visions of Daniel, a noble Jew exiled at Babylon", it combines a prophecy of history with an eschatology (a ...

was published in 2015, and the Pitjantjatjara version of the New Testament is available online. In 2017 members of the Pitjantjatjara Bible Translation Project and partners began a multi-voice recording of the Pitjantjatjara New Testament, with 50% completed by 2017.

Government policies

APY lands Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara, also known as APY, APY Lands or ''the Lands'', is a large, sparsely-populated local government area (LGA) for Aboriginal people, located in the remote north west of South Australia. Some of the aṉangu ...

schools taught a bilingual curriculum until the late 1980s, when the programs were defunded, and teaching reverted to English only. In December 2018 it was announced that the South Australian Government would commit to teaching in the Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara languages, with English as an additional language, by 2029.

Word of the Year 2019 short-listing

The Pitjantjatjara word ''

ngangkari Ngangkari are the traditional healers of the Anangu, the Aboriginal peoples who live mostly in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY Lands) of South Australia and the Western Desert region, which includes parts of the Northern Terri ...

'', added to the

Macquarie Dictionary The ''Macquarie Dictionary'' () is a dictionary of Australian English. It is generally considered by universities and the legal profession to be the authoritative source on Australian English. It also pays considerable attention to New Zealand E ...

in 2019 and defined as an Indigenous practitioner of

bush medicine Bush medicine comprises traditional medicines used by Indigenous Australians, being Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Indigenous people have been using various components of native Australian flora and some fauna as medicine for ...

, was short-listed for the 2019 Word of the Year.

Technical Support

LibreOffice provides locale data and a spellchecker for Pitjantjatjara.

Notes

References

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