This month I decided to visit a place that I know very little about in my research and explore one of their many indigenous languages. Australia has more than 250 indigenous languages including 800 dialects. But today I am going to focus on one: Pintupi.
Pintupi belongs to the Wati branch of the Pama-Nyungan language family. The traditional land of the Pintupi people stretches from Lake Macdonald to Lake Mackay and from Mount Liebig to Jupiter Wells in the Western Region of Australia. However, in the 1940s until the 1980s the Pintupi people were forced to move out of their native lands into the lands of the Papunya and the Haasts Bluff in the Northern Territory. In recent years, there has been an initiative for the Pintupi to move back to their original homeland.
As of 2016, there were about 150 speakers of the original Pintupi language. This may not seem like a lot of speakers, however, that can be attributed to the emerging dialect in the younger generations. A new variety or dialect of Pintupi called Pintupi-Luritja is being spoken by the children growing up in the displaced areas where other indigenous languages, such as Arrernte and Warlpiri, are spoken. Including this new dialect, there were 900 Pintupi speakers in 2016. These numbers have the potential to rise as not only are children learning the language through their parents, but it is also being taught in schools.
The Pintupi language itself has 17 consonant phonemes and 6 vowel phonemes, three of which are long and three are short. All are monophthongal at the phonemic level. The “r” letter has a single contact trill (also known as a flap) but can increase to a true trill in slow, emphatic, or angry speech. In general, Pintupi is an easier language to read out loud because of its straightforward phonological structure with consonants and vowels. There are two syllable types: consonant followed by a vowel and consonant-vowel-consonant. The first syllable is always the stressed syllable. Secondary stress can appear on any following syllables in a word, and the language is consistent in following its own rules. However, not much is available online in terms of learning grammar such as sentence structure, conjugation, or vocabulary.
This alphabet chart is from the Wangka Language School in Australia
Pintupi-Luritja became the first Indigenous Australian language to receive a full official translation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was translated by the elders and linguists at the Australian National University in 2015. Check out a sample of Article 1 below:
“Nganana maru tjuta, tjulkura tjuta, manta yurungka parrari nyinapayi tjutanya liipulala nyinanyi, nganana yanangu maru tjuta wiya kuyakuya. Yuwankarrangkuya palya nintingku kulini. Tjanaya palya kutjupa tjutaku tjukarurru nyinanytjaku, walytja tjuta nguwanpa, mingarrtjuwiya. Tjungungku palyangku kurrunpa kutjungku. Wangka ngaangku nganananya tjakultjunanyi rapa ngaranytjaku kutjupa tjuta nguwanpa.“
Sources:
Language School with Pintupi in Australia – Pintupi – Goldfields Aboriginal Language Centre. https://wangka.com.au/pintupi/. Accessed 30 Aug. 2024.
Dictionary – Hansen, K.C., and L.E Hansen. “Pintupi Dictionary.” Pintupi Dictionary, Summer Institute of Linguistics Australian Aborigines Branch Darwin, 1974, www.sil.org/system/files/reapdata/71/56/73/71567375556029744862280495518305766687/Pintupi_Dictionary.pdf.
Example of the Language: https://youtu.be/_NvcRgD3xcM
“Pintupi.” Pintupi Language and Alphabet, 8 July 2024, omniglot.com/writing/pintupi.htm.