Australian Kriol language

Last updated

Kriol
Native to Australia
RegionRoper River, Katherine areas, Ngukurr, Northern Territory; Kimberley, Western Australia; Gulf Country, Lower Cape York Peninsula, Queensland
Native speakers
4,200 (2006 census) [1]
L2 speakers: 10,000 (1991) [1]
English Creole
  • Pacific
    • Kriol
Language codes
ISO 639-3 rop
Glottolog krio1252 [2]
AIATSIS [3] P1
Linguasphere 52-ABB-ca (varieties:
52-ABB-caa to -caf

Kriol is an English-based creole language that developed from a pidgin used initially in the region of Sydney and Newcastle in New South Wales, Australia in the early days of European colonisation. Later, it moved west and north. The pidgin died out in most parts of the country, except in the Northern Territory, where the contact between European settlers, Chinese and other Asians and the Indigenous Australians in the northern regions has maintained a vibrant use of the language, spoken by about 30,000 people. Despite its similarities to English in vocabulary, it has a distinct syntactic structure and grammar and is a language in its own right.

Creole language stable natural languages that have developed from a pidgin

A creole language, or simply creole, is a stable natural language that develops from the simplifying and mixing of different languages at a fairly sudden point in time: often, a pidgin transitioned into a full-fledged language. While the concept is similar to that of a mixed or hybrid language, a creole is often additionally defined as being highly simplified when compared to its parent languages. However, a creole is still complex enough that it has a consistent system of grammar, possesses a large stable vocabulary, and is acquired by children as their native language, all of which distinguishes a creole language from a pidgin.

A pidgin, or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified means of communication that develops between two or more groups that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn from several languages. It is most commonly employed in situations such as trade, or where both groups speak languages different from the language of the country in which they reside. Fundamentally, a pidgin is a simplified means of linguistic communication, as it is constructed impromptu, or by convention, between individuals or groups of people. A pidgin is not the native language of any speech community, but is instead learned as a second language.

Sydney City in New South Wales, Australia

Sydney is the state capital of New South Wales and the most populous city in Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Port Jackson and extends about 70 km (43.5 mi) on its periphery towards the Blue Mountains to the west, Hawkesbury to the north, the Royal National Park to the south and Macarthur to the south-west. Sydney is made up of 658 suburbs, 40 local government areas and 15 contiguous regions. Residents of the city are known as "Sydneysiders". As of June 2017, Sydney's estimated metropolitan population was 5,131,326, and is home to approximately 65% of the state's population.

Contents

History

European settlement in the Northern Territory was attempted over a period of about forty years. Settlement finally succeeded in 1870, and an influx of both English and Chinese speakers followed. In order to communicate between these two groups and the local Aboriginal people, pidgins developed throughout the territory based on Port Jackson Pidgin English. By 1900, Northern Territory Pidgin English (NTPE) was widespread and well understood.

Northern Territory federal territory of Australia

The Northern Territory is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. It shares borders with Western Australia to the west, South Australia to the south, and Queensland to the east. To the north, the territory looks out to the Timor Sea, the Arafura Sea and the Gulf of Carpentaria, including Western New Guinea and other Indonesian islands. The NT covers 1,349,129 square kilometres (520,902 sq mi), making it the third-largest Australian federal division, and the 11th-largest country subdivision in the world. It is sparsely populated, with a population of only 246,700, making it the least-populous of Australia's eight states and major territories, with fewer than half as many people as Tasmania.

Port Jackson Pidgin English is an English-based pidgin that originated in the region of Sydney and Newcastle in New South Wales in the early days of colonisation. Stockmen carried it west and north as they expanded across Australia. It subsequently died out in most of the country, but was creolised in the Northern Territory at the Roper River Mission (Ngukurr), where missionaries provided a safe place for Indigenous Australians from the surrounding areas to escape annihilation at the hands of European settlers. As the Indigenous Australians who came to seek refuge at Roper River came from different language backgrounds, there grew a need for a shared communication system to develop, and it was this that created the conditions for Port Jackson Pidgin English to become fleshed out into a full language, Kriol, based on English and the eight different Australian language groups spoken by those at the mission.

It creolised first in the Roper River Mission (Ngukurr), where cattle stations were established and a township developed.

During this period, the relations between the native and European people were strained. Aboriginal people fiercely defended their lands. However, the control of lands was eventually seized by the settlers, when a cattle company acquired much of the area. The settlers became more determined to take full control of the land from the native people and carried out a campaign to do so.

The resettlements and land seizures nearly annihilated the indigenous population and also provided one major factor in the development of the creole: drastic social change accompanied by severe communication difficulties.

The second requirement for the development of the creole was a new community, which came about when Anglican missionaries set up a refuge in the Roper River region in 1908. This brought together around 200 people from 8 different aboriginal ethnic groups, who spoke different native languages. Although the adults were multilingual because of frequent meetings and ceremonies, the children had yet to acquire their native language skills and so used the only common language they had: the NTPE. In their lifetime, these children were almost totally responsible for developing the pidgin into a full language.

Although the relations between the missionaries and Aboriginal people were friendly, the missions were not responsible for the development of Kriol. In fact, they tried to introduce Standard English as the official language for the mission, which the Aboriginal children used in class and with the missionaries, but Kriol still flourished.

Standard English is the dialect of English language that is used as the national norm—the standard language—in an English-speaking country, especially as the language for public and formal usage. In England and Wales, the term standard English is associated with British English, the Received Pronunciation accent, and the United Kingdom Standard English (UKSE) grammar and vocabulary. In Scotland, the standard dialect is Scottish Standard English; in the United States, General American is the standard variety spoken in that country; and in Australia, the national standard is called General Australian English.

Kriol was not recognised as a language until the 1970s, as it was regarded as a dialect of English rather than a language in its own right.

Varieties

Kriol is very widely spoken in the Katherine area, but there are minor differences between the varieties of Kriol spoken in particular areas. Some speakers of Kriol prefer to refer to their language by their unique name. However, the varieties are quite similar. Debate is ongoing about whether the varieties should be named differently to highlight their different social significance or the varieties should all be lumped into one big category of Kriol.

Katherine, Northern Territory Town in the Northern Territory, Australia

Katherine is a town in the Northern Territory of Australia. It is situated on the Katherine River below the "Top End", 320 kilometres (200 mi) southeast of Darwin. It is the fourth largest settlement in the Territory and is known as the place where "The outback meets the tropics". Katherine had an urban population of approximately 6,300 at the 2016 Census. Katherine is also the closest major town to RAAF Base Tindal located 17 km southeast and provides education, health, local government services and employment opportunities for the families of Defence personnel stationed there. In the 2016 census, the base had a residential population of 857, with only around 20% of the workforce engaged in employment outside of defence, the majority commuting to work in Katherine.

The differences are not actually that large: Mari Rhydwen compares the distinction to the distinction between American and British English.

Roper River (Ngukurr) Kriol is also spoken in Barunga, and in the Daly River area a mutually intelligible variety is spoken, but Daly River speakers do not consider themselves to be Kriol speakers. There is the question of whether the varieties should be understood as different forms of Kriol to strengthen the identities of the respective region or they all should be seen as Kriol and potentially have a better chance of funding for bilingual education programs.

Kriol Bible translation

On 5 May 2007, the first complete edition of the Bible in the Kriol language was launched at Katherine in the Northern Territory. Translation took over 29 years. It was undertaken by a team of native Kriol speakers led by Rev. Canon Gumbuli Wurrumara and specialists from the Society for Australian Indigenous Languages.

Bible collection of sacred books in Judaism and Christianity

The Bible is a collection of sacred texts or scriptures. Varying parts of the Bible are considered to be a product of divine inspiration and a record of the relationship between God and humans by Christians, Jews, Samaritans, and Rastafarians.

The Kriol Bible is the first complete edition of the Bible in any indigenous Australian language. The publication was a joint venture of The Bible Society, Lutheran Bible Translators, The Church Missionary Society, the Anglican church, Wycliffe Bible Translators and the Australian Society of Indigenous Languages. [4] The following is Genesis 1:1,2 from this translation: "Orait, longtaim wen God bin stat meigimbat ebrijing, nomo enijing bin jidan. Imbin jis eniwei, nomo garram enijing. Oni strongbala woda bin goran goran ebriwei, en imbin brabli dakbala, en det spirit blanga God bin mubabat ontop langa det woda." [5]

Dialects

Dialects of the Kriol includes Roper River Kriol (Roper River Pidgin), Bamyili Creole, Barkly Kriol, Fitzroy Valley Kriol, and Daly River Kriol. [6]

Current issues

A problem facing many communities in Northern Australia is that creole-speaking children are treated as though they speak English, but speak it badly; so they do not receive education in English as a second language. On the other hand, because they are not regarded as having a native mother tongue, they are denied access to education in their traditional language.

The only official bilingual language program in Kriol is at Barunga, which was established during the Whitlam government, and has successfully included Kriol as both a medium and an object of study. Funding is scarce for any further development of programs. Although Kriol is widely spoken, its literal translation is minimal, with the exception of the Bible, and stories produced for the bilingual program which are available through the Living Archive of Aboriginal Languages. This means that literacy rates of Kriol are quite low. Apart from practical implications of this, especially if English literacy is also low (i.e., written communication, education opportunities), it means that traditional stories are either not recorded in written form, or the Ngukurr people must rely on texts from Barunga, which may lessen the identity distinction between the two groups. However, Aboriginal cultures are not traditionally rooted in written records, so the lack of written versions of texts may be a function of the oral nature of Aboriginal storytelling.

Related Research Articles

Portuguese creoles are creole languages which have Portuguese as their substantial lexifier. The most widely-spoken creole influenced by Portuguese is the Cape Verdean Creole.

A mixed language is a language that arises among a bilingual group, typically very abruptly, combining aspects of two or more languages but not clearly deriving primarily from any single language. It differs from a creole or pidgin language in that, whereas creoles/pidgins arise from populations trying to imitate a language where they have no fluency, a mixed language arises in a population that is fluent in both of the source languages. A mixed language, by definition, therefore belongs to more than one language family.

According to the 2010 census, the major languages spoken in Belize include English, Spanish and Kriol, all three spoken by more than 40% of the population. Mayan languages are also spoken in certain areas.

Cameroonian Pidgin English, or Cameroonian Creole, is a language variety of Cameroon. It is also known as Kamtok. Five varieties are currently recognised:

Australian Aboriginal English (AAE) refers to a dialect of Australian English used by a large section of the Indigenous Australian population. It is made up of a number of varieties which developed differently in different parts of Australia. These varieties are generally said to fit along a continuum ranging from light forms, close to Standard Australian English, to heavy forms, closer to Kriol. There are generally distinctive features of accent, grammar, words and meanings, as well as language use. AAE is not to be confused with Kriol, which is a separate language from English spoken by over 30,000 people in Australia. Speakers have been noted to tend to change between different forms of AAE depending on whom they are speaking to, e.g. striving to speak more like Australian English when speaking to a non-Indigenous English-speaking person.

Blekbala Mujik are an Australian rock, reggae group formed in Barunga, Northern Territory in 1986. They fused rock and reggae with a pop, dance sound and have support base for their live shows and recordings. They are cited in the World Music: The Rough Guide as next best known to Yothu Yindi. The band sings in English and in Kriol. At the ARIA Music Awards of 1996 their album, Blekbala Mujik, was nominated for Best Indigenous Release.

Roper Bar, Northern Territory Town in the Northern Territory, Australia

Roper Bar is a location in Australia's Northern Territory. It lies on the traditional land of the Ngalakgan people who used the placename Yurlhbunji to refer to Roper Bar. This part of Australia is extremely remote for travellers although there are a number of Aboriginal communities in the region including Ngukurr, Urapunga and Minyerri. A 4WD trek through these parts can be an extension of the Gulf Track on a journey further up north to Darwin or Arnhem Land.

A French creole, or French-based creole language, is a creole language for which French is the lexifier. Most often this lexifier is not modern French but rather a 17th-century koiné of French from Paris, the French Atlantic harbors, and the nascent French colonies. French-based creole languages are spoken natively by millions of people worldwide, primarily in the Americas and on archipelagos throughout the Indian Ocean. This article also contains information on French pidgin languages, contact languages that lack native speakers.

Languages of Australia languages of a geographic region

Although Australia has no official languages, English has been entrenched as the de facto national language since European settlement. Australian English is a major variety of the language with a distinctive accent and lexicon, and differs slightly from other varieties of English in grammar and spelling. General Australian serves as the standard dialect.

Nunggubuyu or Wubuy is an Australian Aboriginal language, the traditional language of the Nunggubuyu people. It is the primary traditional language spoken in the community of Numbulwar in the Northern Territory. The language is classified as severely endangered by UNESCO, with only 272 speakers according to the 2016 census. Most children in Numbulwar can understand Nunggubuyu when spoken to, but cannot speak it themselves, having to reply in Kriol. To counter this, starting in 1990, the community has been embarking on a revitalisation programme for the language by bringing in elders to teach it to children at the local school.

Gurindji Kriol is a mixed language which is spoken by Gurindji people in the Victoria River District of the Northern Territory (Australia). It is mostly spoken at Kalkaringi and Daguragu which are Aboriginal communities located on the traditional lands of the Gurindji. Related mixed varieties are spoken to the north by Ngarinyman and Bilinarra people at Yarralin and Pigeon Hole. These varieties are similar to Gurindji Kriol, but draw on Ngarinyman and Bilinarra which are closely related to Gurindji.

Warumungu language language

The Warumungu language is spoken by the Warumungu people in Australia's Northern Territory. In addition to spoken language, the Warumungu have a highly developed sign language.

Ngarluma and Kariyarra are members of a dialect continuum, which is a part of the Ngayarda language group of Western Australia, in the Pama–Nyungan language family. Some sources suggest that an extinct dialect, Jaburara, was a third member of the continuum. However, it is clear that Jaburara had a distinct identity that has been partly obscured by a collapse in the numbers of Jaburara speakers during the late 19th century, and there is some evidence that Jaburara may have instead been a dialect of Martuthunira.

Rembarrnga (Rembarunga) is an Australian Aboriginal language. It is one of the Northern Non-Pama–Nyungan languages, spoken in the Roper River region of the Northern territory. There are three dialects of Rembarrnga, namely Galduyh, Gikkik and Mappurn. It is a highly endangered language, with very few remaining fluent speakers. It is very likely that the language is no longer being learned by children. Instead, the children of Rembarrnga speakers are now learning neighbouring languages such as Kriol in south central Arnhem Land, and Kunwinjku, a dialect of Bininj Gunwok, in north central Arnhem Land.

Ngukurr Town in the Northern Territory, Australia

Ngukurr is a remote Aboriginal community on the banks of the Roper River in southern Arnhem Land, Northern Territory. A number of different clans and language groups are represented in the town, with Kriol being the main language spoken. Collectively, indigenous peoples in the Roper River area refer to themselves as Yugul Mangi, and the Yugul Mangi Aboriginal Corporation works closely with the Roper Gulf Regional Council to provide services and economic opportunities in Ngukurr and surrounding areas.

The Yukul, also written Jukul, were an indigenous Australian people of the Northern Territory.

Djipanyma better known as James Japanma (Jibanyma) was an Aboriginal Australian and evangelist in the Northern Territory of Australia.

References

  1. 1 2 Kriol at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Kriol". Glottolog 3.0 . Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  3. ↑ Kriol at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
  4. ↑ Carroll, Peter J. 2004. From the beginning to Proverbs. The Bible Translator 55.4: 491-497.
  5. ↑ The Kriol Bible, full text Retrieved 25 December 2014.
  6. ↑ http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=rop
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.