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| Warlpiri | |
|---|---|
| Warlpiri | |
| Pronunciation | [waɭpiɻi] (['waɭbɪ̆ˌɻi])[1][2] |
| Native to | Australia |
| Region | Northern Territory |
| Ethnicity | Warlpiri,Ngalia |
Native speakers | 2,624 (2021 census)[3] |
Pama–Nyungan
| |
| Dialects |
|
| Latin | |
| Warlpiri Sign Language | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | wbp |
| Glottolog | warl1254 |
| AIATSIS[4] | C15 |
| ELP | Warlpiri |
 | |
| This article containsIPA phonetic symbols. Without properrendering support, you may seequestion marks, boxes, or other symbols instead ofUnicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. | |
TheWarlpiri (/ˈwɑːrlbri/ or/ˈwɔːlpəri/)[5] language is anAustralian Aboriginal language spoken by close to 3,000 of theWarlpiri people from theTanami Desert, northwest ofAlice Springs,Central Australia. It is one of theNgarrkic languages of the largePama–Nyungan family and is one of the largestAboriginal languages in Australia in terms of number of speakers. One of the most well-known terms forThe Dreaming (anAboriginal spiritual belief),Jukurrpa, derives from Warlpiri.[6][7]
Warnayaka (Wanayaga,Woneiga),Wawulya (Ngardilpa), andNgalia are regarded as probable dialects of Warlpiri on theAUSTLANG database, although with potentially no data;[8][9][10] whileNgardilypa is confirmed.[11]
In Warlpiri culture, it is considered impolite or shameful for certain family relations to converse. (For example, a woman should not converse with her son-in-law.) If such conversation is necessary, speakers use a special style of the language, theavoidance register. The avoidance register has the same grammar as ordinary Warlpiri but a drastically reduced lexicon. Most content words are replaced by a generic synonym or a word unique to the avoidance register.
Warlpiri Sign Language exists as well as the spoken language.
In the following tables of the Warlpiri sound system, symbols in⟨boldface⟩ give the practical alphabet used by the Warlpiri community.Phonemic values inIPA are shown in /slashes/ andphonetic values in [square brackets].
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| Close | i⟨i⟩iː⟨ii⟩ | u⟨u⟩uː⟨uu⟩ |
| Open | a⟨a⟩aː⟨aa⟩ | |
Warlpiri has a standard three-vowel system, similar to that ofClassical Arabic, with a phonemic length distinction creating a total of six possible vowels.
| Peripheral | Laminal | Apical | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bilabial | Velar | Palatal | Alveolar | Retroflex | |
| Plosive | p~[b]⟨p⟩ | k~[g]⟨k⟩ | c~[ɟ]⟨j⟩ | t~[d]⟨t⟩ | ʈ~[ɖ]⟨rt⟩ |
| Nasal | m⟨m⟩ | ŋ⟨ng⟩ | ɲ⟨ny⟩ | n⟨n⟩ | ɳ⟨rn⟩ |
| Trill | r⟨rr⟩ | ||||
| Flap | ɽ[ɻ͡ɾ][a]⟨rd⟩ | ||||
| Lateral | ʎ⟨ly⟩ | l⟨l⟩ | ɭ⟨rl⟩ | ||
| Approximant | w⟨w⟩ | j⟨y⟩ | ɻ⟨r⟩ | ||
As shown in the chart, Warlpiri distinguishes five positions of articulation and has oral and nasal stops at each position. The oral stops have nophonemicvoice distinction, but they display voiced and unvoicedallophones. Stops are usually unvoiced at the beginning of a word and voiced elsewhere. In both positions, they are usually unaspirated.
Warlpiri, like most other Australian languages, has nofricative consonants.
Warlpirisyllables are quite constrained in structure. All syllables begin with a single consonant, there are no syllable-initial consonant clusters and no syllable begins with a vowel. After the consonant is a single long or short vowel, which is sometimes followed by a single closing consonant. Open syllables are much more common than closed ones. No syllable ends with a stop or with the retroflex flap /ɽ/.
The most common kind of consonant cluster occurs when a syllable ends with a nasal consonant and the next syllable begins with the corresponding stop, but other clusters like /rk/ and /lp/ also occur.
Stress is not generally distinctive but is assigned by rule. Polysyllabic words receive primary stress on the first syllable, with secondary stresses tending to occur on alternate syllables thereafter; this rhythm may be broken by the structure of the word and so some three-syllable stress groups occur.
If two adjacent syllables in a Warlpirimorpheme have high vowels, those high vowels are almost always alike: both /u/ or both /i/. The number of Warlpiri roots with adjacent syllables having /u/ and /i/ is very small. Bothprogressive andregressive vowel harmony occur. In progressive vowel harmony, the second vowel changes to match the first; in regressive harmony, the first changes to match the second.
The tendency to prefer adjacent high vowels to be identical also spreads across morpheme boundaries within a word. Adding a suffix to a word can place a /u/ and an /i/ in contact. When that happens, one of the vowels tends to assimilate by changing to match the other vowel. That kind ofassimilation is calledvowel harmony and is common in the world's languages. It is found, for example, inFinnish,Hungarian,Mongolian andTurkish.
Regressive harmony occurs only when a tense suffix is attached to a verb (see below). For example, when the verbpanti- (class 2) is placed in the past tense with the suffix-rnu, the result ispanturnu, not*pantirnu. Progressive harmony occurs with most other kinds of suffixes. For example, when theergative case suffix-ngku is attached to the nounkarli 'boomerang', the result iskarlingki, not*karlingku.
On occasion, long chains of high vowels can assimilate, each forcing the next. For example, when the class 2 verbkiji- is attached to the past tense suffix-rnu, the resulting word iskujurnu.
No Warlpiri word begins with an alveolar consonant; the first consonant of a word must be bilabial, palatal, retroflex or velar. Exceptions include borrowings such astala 'dollar', from Englishdollar.
All Warlpiri words end in vowels. When a word's final meaningful component ends in a consonant, the repair strategy is almost always to append a meaningless suffix, usually-pa.
Since the 1950s, Warlpiri has been written in theLatin script using an alphabet originally devised by Lothar Jagst and later modified slightly. The Warlpiri alphabet uses only ordinary letters, with no accent marks, and has the following deviations from IPA:
To those basic rules are added two adjustments to make the alphabet easier to use.
Warlpiri verbs are built from a few hundred verb roots, distributed among five conjugation classes. Two of the classes contain the vast majority of verb roots; the other three classes have only a few roots each.
A large class of modifying prefixes, orpreverbs, are used to create verbs with specific meanings. For example, the verb rootparnka- means 'run' by itself, andwurulyparnka- means 'scurry into hiding'. The preverbwuruly- is used with a few other verb roots to form other verbs of hiding or seclusion. Preverbs are sometimes reduplicated for emphasis or to change the meaning.
Most preverb-verb combinations are fixed in the lexicon, and new combinations cannot be created freely. However, a few preverbs are very productive and can be combined with many different roots, and some roots accept almost any preverb.
The verb root is followed by a tense suffix. There are five tense suffixes for each conjugation class, as shown in the following table. (Some optional variations have been omitted.)
| Class | Nonpast | Past | Imperative | Immediate future | Present |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | mi | ja | ya | ju | nya |
| 2 | rni | rnu | ka | ku | rninya |
| 3 | nyi | ngu | ngka | ngku | nganya |
| 4 | rni | rnu | nja | lku | rninya |
| 5 | ni | nu | nta | nku | nanya |
Warlpiri nouns are assembled from thousands of roots, with a rich array of derivational techniques such as compounding and derivational suffixes. Plurals are formed by reduplication of the root.
Each full Warlpiri clause may contain anauxiliary word, which, together with the verb suffix, serves to identify tense and to clarify the relationship between main and dependent clauses. Common auxiliaries includeka (present tense),kapi (future tense),kaji (conditional). The auxiliary word is almost always the second word of a clause.
The auxiliary word also functions as the home for an elaborate family of suffixes that specify the person and number of the subject and object of the clause. They are similar to the familiar conjugational suffixes that agree with the subject inIndo-European languages, but in Warlpiri, they are placed on the auxiliary instead of on the verb and agree with the object as well as the subject.
An example of a suffixed auxiliary word can be seen in the farewell,kapirnangku nyanyi 'I will see you.' Here,kapi indicates future tense,-rna indicates first-person singular subject 'I',-ngku indicates second-person singular object 'you' andnyanyi is the nonpast form of the class 3 verb 'see'.
In the past tense, the auxiliary word often drops out completely. In that case, the agreement suffixes attach instead to the first or second word of the clause, as innyangurnangku 'I saw you'.
The junction at which the agreement suffixes are attached can trigger progressive vowel harmony. Thus,nyanyi kapingki '(S)he will see you' shows the vowel of the suffix-ngku (second-person singular object) assimilating to the final vowel ofkapi.
