| Ngaatjatjarra | |
|---|---|
| Nga:da | |
| Region | Western Australia |
| Ethnicity | Ngaatjatjarra |
Native speakers | (989 cited 1996)[1] |
Pama–Nyungan
| |
| Ngada Sign Language | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | None |
| AIATSIS[1] | A43 |
| ELP | Ngaatjatjara |
Ngaatjatjarra (alsoNgaatjatjara,Ngaadadjarra) is anAustralian Aboriginal dialect of theWestern Desert language. It is spoken in theWestern Desert cultural bloc which covers about 600,000 square kilometres of the central and central-western desert.
It is very similar to its close neighboursNgaanyatjarra,Pitjantjatjara andPintupi, with which it is highly mutually intelligible.
MostNgaatjatjarra live in the communities ofWarburton,Warakurna,Tjukurla orKaltukatjara.
The nameNgaatjatjarra derives from the wordngaatja 'this' which, combined with thecomitative suffix-tjarra means something like 'ngaatja-having'. This distinguishes it from its near neighbourNgaanyatjarra which hasngaanya for 'this'.
Orthography is in brackets.
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| High | i⟨i⟩iː⟨ii⟩ | ʊ⟨u⟩uː⟨uu⟩ |
| Low | a⟨a⟩aː⟨aa⟩ | |
The Ngaatjatjarra have (or had) asigned form of their language,[2] though it is not clear from records that it was particularly well-developed compared to otherAustralian Aboriginal sign languages.[3]
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