Australian Kriol, also known asRoper River Kriol, Fitzroy Valley Kriol, Australian Creole, Northern Australian Creole orAboriginal English,^[4] is anEnglish-based creole language that developed from apidgin used initially in the region ofSydney andNewcastle inNew South Wales, Australia, in the early days ofEuropean colonisation. Later, it was spoken by groups further west and north.^{[clarification needed]}

The pidgin died out in most parts of the country, except in theNorthern Territory, where the contact between European settlers, Chinese people and other Asian groups, and theAboriginal Australians in the northern regions has maintained a vibrant use of the language, which is spoken by about 30,000 people.^{[not verified in body]} Despite its similarities toEnglish in vocabulary, it has a distinct syntactic structure andgrammar. It is a language in its own right and is distinct fromTorres Strait Creole.

The first records of the progenitor to Kriol, apidgin called Port Jackson Pidgin English (PJPE), are found from the 1780s, with the pidgin being used for communication between the white settlers aroundPort Jackson and the local indigenous population.^[5] During that period, relations between the native Australians and Europeans were strained and often violent. 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.^[6]

European settlement in theNorthern Territory was attempted over a period of about forty years. Settlement finally succeeded in 1870 with the founding ofDarwin, and an influx of English andChinese speakers followed. To communicate between these two groups and the local Aboriginal people, manypidgins developed throughout the territory based on PJPE. By 1900, PJPE had developed into Northern Territory Pidgin English (NTPE), which was widespread and well understood.^[7]

Then, by 1908, NTPE wouldcreolise into Australian Kriol, starting first in theRoper RiverMission. One reason for this was the resettlements andland seizures that nearlyannihilated the indigenous population, as they created drastic social change. Another reason was that theAnglican mission had between 70–200 people at any given times from eight different aboriginal ethnic groups who spoke different native languages. Although adult members of these groups were multilingual because of frequent meetings and ceremonies, the children communicated almost entirely in NTPE, except for close friends and family with whom they would have shared ahome language. But NTPE would not have been sufficient for communication so the children naturally expanded the pidgin until it creolised into Australian Kriol. Children from these communities disseminated English features throughout their communities. Although the relations between the missionaries and Aboriginal people were friendly, the missionaries were not responsible for the development of Kriol. In fact, they tried to introduceStandard English as the official language for the mission, which the Aboriginal children used in class and with the missionaries, but Kriol still flourished.^[8]

Not all speakers of NTPE would switch over to Australian Kriol though as many after 1908 continued to speak NTPE.^[8] Kriol gradually spread and this spread was significantly sped up by policy changes made afterWorld War 2 as well as changes caused directly by World War 2.^[9] This process of creolisation entailed a massive increase in thelexicon as well as a complexification of thegrammar of the language.^[7] When NTPE speaking communities creolised not all NTPE speakers would start speaking Kriol for those in more peripheral parts of the Kriol speaking area their NTPE was heavily influenced by English so when it creolised it became a dialect ofAustralian Aboriginal English heavily influenced by Kriol.^[9]

Kriol was not recognised as a language until the 1970s, as it was regarded as adialect of English.

A Kriolorthography began development in 1973, shortly after the Australian Government's announcement of an education policy using English, Kriol, and Aboriginal languages. Though a small amount of work had been done in 1967 by Mary Harris andMargaret Sharpe, their work had not been built on, and Kriol orthography has little influence from their work. From 1973 to 1975 linguistsJohn Sandefur and Sharpe worked on the orthography with only limited involvement fromnative speakers of Kriol. By mid 1976 Kriol speakers from a Ngukurr school had become involved in the project, ensuring the orthography would work for both the Bamyili and Ngukurr dialects, as at the time these two dialects were the most known amongst the wider Australian establishment. By November 1976 the orthography was complete and was launched with a four-week Kriol writers’ course in Bamyili and Ngukurr schools.^[10]

In her first speech in April 2013,Josie Farrer spoke in Kriol andGija, marking the first ever use of anindigenous language in theWestern Australian Parliament.^[6]

The Kriol language, unlike many other Aboriginal languages, remains healthy, with most of its speakers under 30 years old. About 99% of Kriol speakers are Australian Aboriginals, while only 0.8% belong to other groups, indicating that Kriol functions primarily as an in-group language. While Kriol is predominantly spoken rather than written, with generally low literacy rates among its speakers, various organisations and initiatives are working to promote Kriol literacy and media presence through education, original content creation and translations of existing works.^[11][12]

Views on the Kriol language vary widely. Some dispute its status as a distinct language, dismissing it as either English or poorly spoken English. Others see it as a threat to traditional Aboriginal languages, while many embrace and actively support it. Government support remains limited, with only twobilingual programs ever established; those being inBarunga andNgukurr. Although the Barunga program has since closed, both programs successfully incorporated Kriol as both a teaching medium and a subject of study.^[12][11][13]

Code switching between Kriol and English, as well as between Light and Heavy Kriol, is common practice. Light Kriol and English are typically used in formal settings, while Heavy Kriol is preferred among Aboriginal people and in casual situations, similar to how speakers switch between formal and informal English.^[10]

In areas bordering Kriol-speaking regions, a process ofdecreolisation has occurred, with speakers shifting toward Australian Aboriginal English while retaining some Kriol features. This trend is most noticeable among mixed-race Aboriginal Australians living in larger towns with significant European populations. Historically, widespread discrimination led many to suppress their Aboriginal heritage and view Kriol as incorrect English that needed to be eliminated. These factors, combined with constant exposure to English, led to a gradual language shift. Whileracism has diminished, continued contact with English means that in some communities, although the Aboriginal population can speak Kriol, Aboriginal English remains the primary language for interaction withEuropean-descent Australians and others.^[9]

Another form of decreolisation occurs when early Kriol speakers relocate to areas where Kriol is not used. Without regular exposure to Kriol and surrounded by English speakers, their language would shift toward English.^[9]

However, the extent of decreolisation poses no significant threat to Kriol. With a high birthrate among Kriol speakers and decreolisation affecting only a small minority in approximately 6 out of 250 Kriol-speaking communities, the language maintains its vitality.^[9]

Kriol exists along apost-creole continuum, with dialects ranging from those closer toAustralian Aboriginal English to those more distinct from it. Heavy Kriol, which differs more substantially from English, incorporates more words from Australian Aboriginal languages and features more divergentword order andphonology. Light Kriol, on the other hand, maintains more English-like characteristics, including English suffixes, similar phonology and a higher proportion of English vocabulary.^[14] Between these two extremes lies a spectrum of mesolects, representing varying degrees of difference from standard English.^[10]

The choice between Light and Heavy Kriol often reflects speakers' level of integration into mainstream Anglo-Australian society. Indigenous Australians who are more integrated into broader society typically use Light Kriol, while those who maintain stronger traditional ties and often speak an Indigenous Australian language as theirfirst language tend to use Heavy Kriol.^[10]

Mutual intelligibility between Kriol and English is limited, though it varies depending on the dialect. While Light Kriol is more comprehensible to English speakers than Heavy Kriol, even then understanding is superficial. English speakers may grasp the general meaning of Kriol speech but struggle to understand specific details.^[10]

Aside from this acrolectic spectrum, Australian Kriol encompasses several geographic dialects, organised in a hierarchy of regional and local variations. Major regional dialects are centred aroundRoper River,Barunga,Fitzroy Valley,Halls Creek,Daly River,Belyuen,Turkey Creek-Wyndham-Kununurra area and theBarkly Tableland, with possible distinct dialects around theVictoria River. Each regional dialect further subdivides into local dialects, typically associated with individual settlements, though these smaller variations remain largely unstudied.^[9]

These dialects differ in their phonology, grammar andlexicon. A general pattern emerges: dialects in more populated, accessible areas tend toward Light Kriol, showing stronger English influence, while those in more isolated, less populated regions typically align with Heavy Kriol. Each dialect community usually descends from speakers of a particular Indigenous language, leading to the incorporation of vocabulary from that language. While speakers of other dialects can understand these distinct vocabulary items, they typically do not use them themselves.^[9]

Among these geographic variations, the dialects of the Roper River and Barunga regions have received the most thorough documentation and study.^[15]

Australian Kriol also exhibits social dialects or sociolects. One notable variety isstrit tok (street talk), a youthslang often criticised by traditional speakers as a corruption of "proper" Kriol. Another variant is Borunga Kriol, spoken by non-native Kriol speakers attempting to communicate with Kriol speakers. Borunga Kriol speakers fall into two groups: language learners who produce an "English-Kriolinterlanguage" while acquiring the language, and those who intentionally speak a simplified, incorrect version of English in an attempt to mimic Kriol. This latter form, known as "Mock Kriol", bears little resemblance to authentic Kriol and represents an inaccurate imitation of the language.^[9]

Two distinct creole languages have also emerged from contact between Kriol and other Aboriginal languages.Gurndji Creole developed in theVictoria River District through extensive code-switching between Kriol andGurindji.^[16] Similarly,Light Warlpiri emerged in the town ofLajamanu through rapid code-switching between Kriol, English andWarlpiri.^[17]

Austral Kriol also has 7diphthongs.^[10]

Australian Kriol is influenced by different sounds that are used within Australian Indigenous languages, which means different individuals will pronounce things differently depending on the Indigenous languages that they speak.^[18]

Australian Kriol phonotactics dictates thatconsonant clusters at the start of words must be a plosive followed by a liquid, rhotic or glide consonant, the only exception is an alveolar fricative followed by a plosive. Consonant clusters at the end of words are nonexistent except for the clusters /lb/ and /ks/.^[11]

The Kriolalphabet is based on theEnglish alphabet, but varies not only in whatletters and digraphs are used, but also in the rules for said letters and digraphs. Eachphoneme in Kriol can only be spelled one way, unlike inEnglish orthography, where several different spellings can be used to make the same sound. Kriol, unlike English, also uses aphonetic orthography in which words are spelled to match how they sound.^[10]

The Kriol alphabet contains 21 letters, 11consonantdigraphs, 5vowel digraphs and 5punctuation marks.^[10]

Letters:A,B,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,Q,R,S,T,U,W,Y

Consonant Digraphs:Ly,Ng,Ny,Rd,Rl,Rn,Rr,Rt,Sh,Th,Tj

Vowel Digraphs:Ai,Au,Ei,Oi,Ou

Punctuation Marks:Period (.),Comma (,),Question mark (?),Exclamation mark (!),Quotation marks (" ")

As a general rule, the grammar of Kriol is a simplified version of that found inEnglish, meaning that it isanalytic, with words generally having only one form and additional meaning derived not from changing words but fromword order and added new words.^[19]

The parts of speech which Australian Kriol has are:verbs,modals,tense markers,adverbs,nouns,pronouns,adjectives,demonstratives,quantifiers,articles,plural markers,prepositions, andparticles.^[14]

Kriolpronouns differentiate between different betweenfirst,second andthird person, as well as between singular,plural, and dual plural inclusive and exclusive pronouns first person. The language also differentiates betweensubject,object, independent pronoun, and adnominalpossessive. There are alsoreflexive andreciprocal pronouns.^[11]

^[11]

Various types of words in Kriol have one or moresuffixes associated with them with certain suffixes being used for several different types of words.^[14]

In Australian Kriol, manyspatial words from English have been transformed into suffixes attached to verbs they interact with. The specific suffixes vary between dialects but remain mostly similar.^[19]

These spacial suffixes and the non spacial suffixes can be combined in words likepikimap (pick up) which contains the suffixesim andap.^[14]

Kriol uses anSVO word order exclusively. In Kriol the order of possessor and possessum varies, with it being evenly split between possessor possessum and possessum possessor.^[19]

In Kriol word order is evenly split between verb object adverb and Adverb verb object.^[19] Word order is used overinflections or subject objectaffixation or verbs to specify meaning.^[21]

In Kriol, reduplication can be used both on the root of a verb and on the entire verb to make the verb a progressive verb.^[14]

The primary contributing language of Kriol is English, but it has received and continues to receive influence fromChinese Pidgin English,Alawa,Marra,Ngalakgan,Wandarrang,Mangarrayi,Ngandi,Nunggubuyu,Jawoyn,Dalabon,Rembarrnga,Barunga,Jaminjung,Ngarinyman,Wardaman,Walmatjari,Djaru,Miriwoong andGija.^[11]

There are a significant number of loanwords from Australian Aboriginal languages in Australian Kriol. These words most frequently come fromsemantic domains which were of particular significance to Aboriginal Australians such askinship,ceremony andnature or were primarily discussed among the family and language group such asfamilial terms. Examples of these include the wordslambarra (father in law),corroboree (sacred dance) andjaojao (water lily stalk).^[8]

New words have often been coined to fill lexical gaps instead of borrowing from Aboriginal languages. For example the Kriol wordmailawik comes from the English wordweek and the Aboriginalmorphememaila (poor), and thus literally means "poor week". It was used to refer to the week in the fortnightly payment system in which the employee would not be paid, which is referred to "off pay week" inAustralian English.^[8]

Words were also sometimessemantically changed or expanded to fill new meanings.^[8]

Many famous pieces of media suchShakespeare andWaltzing Matilda have been translated into Kriol, and many books have been published in Kriol.ABC and several other organizations currently make news in Kriol. Online there are several videos and texts available in Kriol, as well as resources for learning the language. There is also anAustralian Kriol Wikipedia currently on theWikimediaIncubator.

On 5 May 2007, the first complete edition of theBible in the Kriol language was launched atKatherine 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.

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, theAnglican church,Wycliffe Bible Translators, and the Australian Society of Indigenous Languages.^[22]

Bibliography

• Harris, John (1993) "Losing and gaining a language: the story of Kriol in the Northern Territory" in Walsh, M and Yallop, C (eds),Language and Culture in Aboriginal Australia, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra.

Kriol test ofWikipedia atWikimedia Incubator

Australian Kriol repository ofWikisource, the free library

• Meigim Kriol Strongbala Bilingual Kriol-English website providing news and information on Kriol.
• Ngukurr Community site for the main Aboriginal Community producing Kriol language materials.
• Kriol language resources
• Kriol-English Dictionary Retrieved 25 December 2014.
• Crittenden, Stephen (2 May 2007)."First complete Bible translation in an indigenous language".Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved25 December 2014.
• The Kriol Bible, full text Retrieved 13 January 2020.
• Kriol materials from the Barunga bilingual program at theLiving Archive of Aboriginal Languages^{[permanent dead link]}
• Roper Gulf Regional Council Retrieved 25 December 2014.

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