Warlpiri Sign Language, also known as Rdaka-rdaka (''hand signs''), is a

sign language Sign languages (also known as signed languages) are languages that use the visual-manual modality to convey meaning, instead of spoken words. Sign languages are expressed through manual articulation in combination with non-manual markers. Sign l ...

used by the

Warlpiri Warlpiri may refer to: * Warlpiri people, an indigenous people of the Tanami Desert, Central Australia Central Australia, also sometimes referred to as the Red Centre, is an inexactly defined region associated with the geographic centre of Au ...

, an

Aboriginal Aborigine, aborigine or aboriginal may refer to: *Aborigines (mythology), in Roman mythology * Indigenous peoples, general term for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area *One of several groups of indigenous peoples, see ...

community in the central desert region of Australia. It is one of the most elaborate, and certainly the most studied, of all

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 a ...

Social context

While many neighbouring language groups such as

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 Austral ...

and the Western Desert Language have auxiliary sign languages, Warlpiri Sign Language, along with

Warumungu Sign Language Warumungu Sign Language is a sign language used by the Warumungu, an Aboriginal community in the central desert region of Australia. Along with Warlpiri Sign Language, it is (or perhaps was) one of the most elaborate of all Australian Aborigina ...

, appears to be the most well developed and widely used — it is as complete a system of communication as spoken Warlpiri. This is possibly due to the tradition that widows should not speak during an extended mourning period which can last for months or even years; during this time they communicate solely by sign language. In Warlpiri communities, widows also tend to live away from their families, with other widows or young single women. As a result, it is typical for Warlpiri women to have a better command of the sign language than men, and among older women at

Yuendumu Yuendumu is a town in the Northern Territory of Australia, northwest of Alice Springs on the Tanami Road, within the Central Desert Region local government area. It ranks as one of the larger remote communities in central Australia, and has a ...

, Warlpiri Sign Language is in constant use, whether they are under a speech ban or not.Dail-Jones, M. A. (1984). ''A Culture in Motion: A Study of the Interrelationship of Dancing, Sorrowing, Hunting and Fighting as Performed by the Warlpiri Women of Central Australia.'' M.A. Thesis, University of Hawaii, Honolulu. However, all members of the community understand it, and may sign in situations where speech is undesirable, such as while hunting, in private communication, across distances, while ill, or for subjects that require a special reverence or respect. Many also use signs as an accompaniment to speech.

Linguistics

British linguist

Adam Kendon Adam Kendon (born in London in 1934, son of Frank Kendon) was one of the world's foremost authorities on the topic of gesture, which he viewed broadly as meaning all the ways in which humans use visible bodily action in creating utterances includ ...

(1988) argues that Warlpiri Sign Language is best understood as a manual representation of the spoken

Warlpiri language The Warlpiri ( or ) ( wbp, Warlpiri > waɭbɪ̆ˌɻi language is spoken by about 3,000 of the Warlpiri people from the Tanami Desert, northwest of Alice Springs, Central Australia. It is one of the Ngarrkic languages of the large Pama� ...

manually coded language Manually coded languages (MCLs) are a family of gestural communication methods which include gestural spelling as well as constructed languages which directly interpolate the grammar and syntax of oral languages in a gestural-visual form—that ...

), rather than as a separate language; individual signs represent

morphemes 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 ...

from spoken Warlpiri, which are expressed in the same

word order In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how different languages employ different orders. C ...

as the oral language. However, "markers of case relations, tense, and

clitic In morphology and syntax, a clitic (, backformed from Greek "leaning" or "enclitic"Crystal, David. ''A First Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics''. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1980. Print.) is a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a ...

ised

pronoun In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun ( abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would n ...

s are not signed." Some spatial grammatical features are present which do not exist in spoken Warlpiri, though spoken Warlpiri incorporates directionals in its verbs, and in such cases sign corresponds to speech.

References

* C.D. Wright (1980) ''Walpiri Hand Talk: An Illustrated Dictionary of Hand Signs used by the Walpiri People of Central Australia.'' Darwin: N.T. Department of Education. * Mervyn Meggitt (1954) ''Sign language among the Warlpiri of Central Australia.'' Oceania, 25(1), pp. 2–16 (reprinted (1978) in ''Aboriginal sign languages of the Americas and Australia.'' New York: Plenum Press, vol. 2, pp. 409–423) *

(1985) ''Iconicity in Warlpiri Sign language.'' In Bouissac P., Herzfeld M. & Posner R. (eds), Inconicity: Essay on the Nature of Culture . Tübingen: Stauffenburger Verlag. * A. Kendon (1988) ''Parallels and divergences between Warlpiri sign language and spoken Warlpiri: analyses of signed and spoken discourses.'' Oceania, 58, pp. 239–254. * A. Kendon (1988) Sign Languages of Aboriginal Australia:Cultural, Semiotic and Communicative Perpsectives. Cambridge University Press * A. Kendon (1980) The sign language of the women of Yuendumu: A preliminary report on the structure of Warlpiri sign language. Sign Language Studies, 1980 27, 101–112. * A. Kendon (1984) ''Knowledge of sign language in an Australian Aboriginal community.'' Journal of Anthropological Research. 1984 40, 556–576. * A. Kendon (1985) ''Variation in Central Australian Aboriginal Sign language: A preliminary report.'' Language in Central Australia, 1(4): 1–11. * A. Kendon (1987) ''Simultaneous Speaking and Signing in Warlpiri Sign language Users''. Multilingua 1987, 6: 25–68. * C. P. Mountford (1949) "Gesture language of the Walpari tribe, central Australia" ''Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia'', 73: 100–101. {{sign language navigation Australian Aboriginal Sign Language family Ngarrkic languages Warlpiri people

Social context

Linguistics

See also

References

Further reading