Ngaatjatjarra dialect

Ngaatjatjarra
Ngaatjatjarra
Nga:da
Region	Western Australia
Ethnicity	Ngaatjatjarra
Native speakers	12 (2005)
Language family	Pama–Nyungan Wati Western Desert Ngaatjatjarra; ; ;
Signed forms	Ngada Sign Language
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	None
AIATSIS	A43
ELP	Ngaatjatjara

Last updated February 21, 2025

Ngaatjatjarra (also Ngaatjatjara, Ngaadadjarra) is an Australian Aboriginal dialect of the Western Desert language. It is spoken in the Western Desert cultural bloc which covers about 600,000 square kilometres of the central and central-western desert.

Name

The name Ngaatjatjarra derives from the word ngaatja 'this' which, combined with the comitative suffix -tjarra means something like 'ngaatja-having'. This distinguishes it from its near neighbour Ngaanyatjarra which has ngaanya for 'this'.

Phonology

Vowels

Orthography is in brackets.

	Front	Back
High	i ⟨i⟩ iː ⟨ii⟩	ʊ ⟨u⟩ uː ⟨uu⟩
Low	a ⟨a⟩ aː ⟨aa⟩

Sign language

The Ngaatjatjarra have (or had) a signed form of their language,^[2] though it is not clear from records that it was particularly well-developed compared to other Australian Aboriginal sign languages.^[3]

References

1 2 A43 Ngaatjatjarra at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
↑ C.P. Mountford (1938) "Gesture language of the Ngada tribe of the Warburton Ranges, Western Australia", Oceania 9: 152–155. Reprinted in Aboriginal sign languages of the Americas and Australia. New York: Plenum Press, 1978, vol. 2, pp. 393–396.
↑ Kendon, A. (1988) Sign Languages of Aboriginal Australia: Cultural, Semiotic and Communicative Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

DOUSSET Laurent 2002. Politics and demography in a contact situation: The establishment of Giles Meteorological Station in the Rawlinson Ranges, Aboriginal History, 26: 1-22.
DOUSSET Laurent 2003. On the misinterpretation of the Aluridja kinship system type (Australian Western Desert), Social Anthropology, 11(1): 43-61.
DOUSSET Laurent 2005. Structure and Substance: Combining ‘Classic’ and ‘Modern’ Kinship Studies in the Australian Western Desert, TAJA, 16(1): 18-30.
DOUSSET L. 2003. Indigenous modes of representing social relationships: A short critique of the “genealogical concept”, Aboriginal Studies, 2003/1: 19-29.
GLASS A. & HACKETT D. 2003. Ngaanyatjarra & Ngaatjatjarra to English dictionary. Alice Springs: IAD. ISBN 1-86465-053-2
GOULD R.A. 1968. Living Archaeology: The Ngatatjara of Western Australia, Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, 24(2): 101-122.
GOULD R.A. 1969. Subsistence behavior among the Western desert Aborigines of Australia, Oceania, 39(4): 253-274.

External links

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[AIATSIS-1] 1 2 A43 Ngaatjatjarra at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies

[2] C.P. Mountford (1938) "Gesture language of the Ngada tribe of the Warburton Ranges, Western Australia", Oceania 9: 152–155. Reprinted in Aboriginal sign languages of the Americas and Australia. New York: Plenum Press, 1978, vol. 2, pp. 393–396.

[3] Kendon, A. (1988) Sign Languages of Aboriginal Australia: Cultural, Semiotic and Communicative Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

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