Pintupi language
Encyclopedia
Pintupi is an indigenous Australian language. It is one of the Wati languages of the large Southwest branch of the Pama–Nyungan family. It is one of the varieties of the Western Desert Language
(WDL).
Pintupi
is the name commonly used to refer to a variety of the Western Desert Language
spoken by indigenous
people whose traditional lands are in the area between Lake MacDonald and Lake Mackay
, stretching from Mount Liebig
in the Northern Territory to Jupiter Well (west of Pollock Hills) in Western Australia. These people moved (or were forced to move) into the indigenous communities of Papunya
and Haasts Bluff
in the west of the Northern Territory
in the 1940s-1980s. The last Pintupi people to leave their traditional lifestyle in the desert came in to Kiwirrkura in 1984. Over recent decades they have moved back into their traditional country, setting up the communities of Kintore
(in Pintupi known as Walungurru) in the Northern Territory, Kiwirrkura and Jupiter Well (in Pintupi Puntutjarrpa) in Western Australia.
Children who were born in Papunya and Haasts Bluff grew up speaking a new variety of Pintupi, now known as Pintupi-Luritja, due to their close contact with speakers of Arrernte, Warlpiri
and other varieties of the WDL. This has continued through the moves west so that most Pintupi people today speak Pintupi-Luritja, although there remains a clear distinction between the more western and eastern varieties.
in 1967–68.
phonemes. The symbols used in the practical orthography are shown in brackets where they differ from the IPA symbols.
The lamino-alveolars are frequently palatalized, and /t̻/ often has an affricated allophone
[tˢ].
The trill /r/ usually has a single contact (i.e. a flap
[ɾ]) in ordinary speech, but multiple contacts (a true trill) in slow, emphatic, or angry speech. The retroflex approximant /ɻ/ may also be realized as a flap [ɽ].
Hansen and Hansen (1969) refer to the retroflex consonant
s as "apico-domal".
al at the phonemic level. Again, the symbols used in the practical orthography are shown enclosed in brackets where they differ from the phonemic symbols.
The short vowel phonemes are devoiced
when word-final at the end of a clause, as in [ŋurakutulpi̥] 'he finally (came) to camp', [kapilat̻uɻḁ] 'we all (brought) water for him', and [jilariŋu̥] 'it was close'.
Short vowels are rhotacized
before retroflex consonants, as in [wa˞ʈa] 'tree (generic)', [ka˞ɳa] 'spear (one type)', and [mu˞ɭi] 'a shelter'.
The open vowel /a/ is diphthongized to [aⁱ] and [aᵘ] before /j/ and /w/ respectively, as in [waⁱjunpuwa] 'pare (it)' and [kaᵘwu˞ɳpa] 'cold ashes'.
only when followed by a homorganic plosive, as in /t̻ampu/ 'left side' and /miŋkiɻi/ 'mouse'. Otherwise, only coronal sonorants may appear in the syllable coda. All consonants except the apico-alveolars and /l̻/ may appear in word-initial position; only coronal sonorants (except /ɻ/) may appear in word-final position. However, at the end of a clause, the syllable /pa/ is added to consonant-final words, so consonants may not appear in clause-final position.
Short vowels may appear anywhere in the word; long vowels may appear only in the first syllable (which is stressed), as in /ɳiːrki/ 'eagle' and /maːra/ 'ignorant'.
in place of articulation
to the preceding consonant, as in /maɭan̻ + tu/ → [maɭan̻t̻u] 'younger sibling (transitive subject)', /pawuɭ + ta/ → [pawuɭʈa] 'at the spirit ground'. However, the sequence /r + t/ undergoes coalescence and surfaces as simple [ʈ], as in /t̻intar + ta/ → [t̻intaʈa] 'at Tjintar'.
When two identical CV sequences meet at a word boundary, they undergo haplology
and fuse into a single word in rapid speech, as in /mutikajiŋka kaɭpakatiŋu/ → [mutikajiŋkaɭpakatiŋu] 'climbed into the car' and /parariŋu ŋuɻurpa/ → [parariŋuɻurpa] 'went around the middle'. When a lamino-alveolar consonant or /j/ is followed by /a/ in the last syllable of a word, and the next word begins with /ja/, the word-initial /j/ is deleted and the two adjacent /a/-sounds merge into a long /aː/, as in /ŋal̻a januja/ → [ŋal̻aːnuja] 'they all came' and /wija japura/ → [wijaːpura] 'not west'.
ed on the first syllable. In careful speech, every second syllable after that (i.e. the third, fifth, seventh, etc.) may receive a secondary stress, but secondary stress never falls on the final syllable of the word, as in [ˈt̻akaˌmaraˌkuɳaɻa] 'for the benefit of Tjakamara' and [ˈjumaˌɻiŋkaˌmaraˌt̻uɻaka] 'because of mother-in-law'. However, the particle /ka/ (which indicates a change of subject) is not stressed when it is the first morpheme
in a clause, as in /kaˈjanu/ '(he) went'.
Western Desert Language
Western Desert Language is the name used to refer to an otherwise un-named Australian Aboriginal language. It is one of the Wati languages of the large Southwest branch of the Pama–Nyungan family.-Location and list of communities:...
(WDL).
Pintupi
Pintupi
Pintupi refers to an Australian Aboriginal group who are part of the Western Desert cultural group and whose homeland is in the area west of Lake MacDonald and Lake Mackay in Western Australia. These people moved into the Aboriginal communities of Papunya and Haasts Bluff in the west of the...
is the name commonly used to refer to a variety of the Western Desert Language
Western Desert Language
Western Desert Language is the name used to refer to an otherwise un-named Australian Aboriginal language. It is one of the Wati languages of the large Southwest branch of the Pama–Nyungan family.-Location and list of communities:...
spoken by indigenous
Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....
people whose traditional lands are in the area between Lake MacDonald and Lake Mackay
Lake Mackay
Lake Mackay is the largest of hundreds of ephemeral salt lakes scattered throughout Western Australia and the Northern Territory....
, stretching from Mount Liebig
Mount Liebig
Mount Liebig is a mountain with an altitude of 1524 m in the southern part of the Northern Territory of Australia. It is one of the highest peaks of the MacDonnell Ranges and was named by the explorer Ernest Giles after the German chemist Justus von Liebig...
in the Northern Territory to Jupiter Well (west of Pollock Hills) in Western Australia. These people moved (or were forced to move) into the indigenous communities of Papunya
Papunya, Northern Territory
Papunya is a small Indigenous Australian community of about 299 people roughly 240 km northwest of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory, Australia...
and Haasts Bluff
Haasts Bluff, Northern Territory
Haasts Bluff, also known as Ikuntji, is an Indigenous Australian community in Central Australia, a region of the Northern Territory. The community is located in the MacDonnell Shire local government area, west of Alice Springs...
in the west of the Northern Territory
Northern Territory
The Northern Territory is a federal territory of Australia, occupying much of the centre of the mainland continent, as well as the central northern regions...
in the 1940s-1980s. The last Pintupi people to leave their traditional lifestyle in the desert came in to Kiwirrkura in 1984. Over recent decades they have moved back into their traditional country, setting up the communities of Kintore
Kintore, Northern Territory
Kintore is a remote settlement in the Northern Territory of Australia, located approximately 530 km west of Alice Springs and close to the border with Western Australia. At the 2001 census, Kintore had a population of 691, of which 95% identified themselves as Aboriginal...
(in Pintupi known as Walungurru) in the Northern Territory, Kiwirrkura and Jupiter Well (in Pintupi Puntutjarrpa) in Western Australia.
Children who were born in Papunya and Haasts Bluff grew up speaking a new variety of Pintupi, now known as Pintupi-Luritja, due to their close contact with speakers of Arrernte, Warlpiri
Warlpiri
The Warlpiri are a group of Indigenous Australians, many of whom speak the Warlpiri language. There are 5,000–6,000 Warlpiri, living mostly in a few towns and settlements scattered through their traditional land in Australia's Northern Territory, north and west of Alice Springs...
and other varieties of the WDL. This has continued through the moves west so that most Pintupi people today speak Pintupi-Luritja, although there remains a clear distinction between the more western and eastern varieties.
Phonology
The phonology of Pintupi has been described by K. C. and L. E. Hansen based on fieldwork conducted in Papunya, Northern TerritoryPapunya, Northern Territory
Papunya is a small Indigenous Australian community of about 299 people roughly 240 km northwest of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory, Australia...
in 1967–68.
Consonants
Pintupi has 17 consonantConsonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
phonemes. The symbols used in the practical orthography are shown in brackets where they differ from the IPA symbols.
| Bilabial Bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:... |
Coronal Coronal consonant Coronal consonants are consonants articulated with the flexible front part of the tongue. Only the coronal consonants can be divided into apical , laminal , domed , or subapical , as well as a few rarer orientations, because only the front of the tongue has such... |
Lamino- palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate... |
Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apico- alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth... | Lamino- alveolar Laminal consonant A laminal consonant is a phone produced by obstructing the air passage with the blade of the tongue, which is the flat top front surface just behind the tip of the tongue on the top. This contrasts with apical consonants, which are produced by creating an obstruction with the tongue apex only... | Retroflex Retroflex consonant A retroflex consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants, especially in Indology... |
|||||
| Plosive Stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &... |
p | t | t̻ (tj) | ʈ (t) | k | ||
| So- nor- ants Sonorant In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant is a speech sound that is produced without turbulent airflow in the vocal tract; fricatives and plosives are not sonorants. Vowels are sonorants, as are consonants like and . Other consonants, like or , restrict the airflow enough to cause turbulence, and... |
Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
m | n | n̻ (ny) | ɳ (n) | ŋ (ng) | |
| Trill Trill consonant In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. Standard Spanish <rr> as in perro is an alveolar trill, while in Parisian French it is almost always uvular.... |
r (rr) | ||||||
| Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no... |
w | ɻ (r) | j (y) | ||||
| Lateral approximant Lateral consonant A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth.... |
l | l̻ (ly) | ɭ (l) | ||||
The lamino-alveolars are frequently palatalized, and /t̻/ often has an affricated allophone
Allophone
In phonology, an allophone is one of a set of multiple possible spoken sounds used to pronounce a single phoneme. For example, and are allophones for the phoneme in the English language...
[tˢ].
The trill /r/ usually has a single contact (i.e. a flap
Flap consonant
In phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator is thrown against another.-Contrast with stops and trills:...
[ɾ]) in ordinary speech, but multiple contacts (a true trill) in slow, emphatic, or angry speech. The retroflex approximant /ɻ/ may also be realized as a flap [ɽ].
Hansen and Hansen (1969) refer to the retroflex consonant
Retroflex consonant
A retroflex consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants, especially in Indology...
s as "apico-domal".
Vowels
Pintupi has six vowel phonemes, three long and three short. All are monophthongMonophthong
A monophthong is a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation....
al at the phonemic level. Again, the symbols used in the practical orthography are shown enclosed in brackets where they differ from the phonemic symbols.
| Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also... | Central Central vowel A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel... | Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark... |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the... |
i • iː (ii) | u • uː (uu) | |
| Open Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue... |
a • aː (aa) |
The short vowel phonemes are devoiced
Voiceless
In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, this is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word "phonation" implies voicing, and that voicelessness is the lack of...
when word-final at the end of a clause, as in [ŋurakutulpi̥] 'he finally (came) to camp', [kapilat̻uɻḁ] 'we all (brought) water for him', and [jilariŋu̥] 'it was close'.
Short vowels are rhotacized
R-colored vowel
In phonetics, an R-colored or rhotic vowel is a vowel that is modified in a way that results in a lowering in frequency of the third formant...
before retroflex consonants, as in [wa˞ʈa] 'tree (generic)', [ka˞ɳa] 'spear (one type)', and [mu˞ɭi] 'a shelter'.
The open vowel /a/ is diphthongized to [aⁱ] and [aᵘ] before /j/ and /w/ respectively, as in [waⁱjunpuwa] 'pare (it)' and [kaᵘwu˞ɳpa] 'cold ashes'.
Orthography
An orthography was developed by the Hansens and is used in their publications, which include a dictionary, a grammar sketch and bible portions. This orthography is also used in the bilingual school, and especially in the school's Literature Production Centre. The orthography is shown in the above tables of consonants and vowels.Phonotactics
Pintupi has only two possible syllable types: CV (a consonant followed by a vowel) and CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant). In the middle of a word, /m/ and /ŋ/ may appear in the syllable codaSyllable coda
In phonology, a syllable coda comprises the consonant sounds of a syllable that follow the nucleus, which is usually a vowel. The combination of a nucleus and a coda is called a rime. Some syllables consist only of a nucleus with no coda...
only when followed by a homorganic plosive, as in /t̻ampu/ 'left side' and /miŋkiɻi/ 'mouse'. Otherwise, only coronal sonorants may appear in the syllable coda. All consonants except the apico-alveolars and /l̻/ may appear in word-initial position; only coronal sonorants (except /ɻ/) may appear in word-final position. However, at the end of a clause, the syllable /pa/ is added to consonant-final words, so consonants may not appear in clause-final position.
Short vowels may appear anywhere in the word; long vowels may appear only in the first syllable (which is stressed), as in /ɳiːrki/ 'eagle' and /maːra/ 'ignorant'.
Phonological processes
When a suffix-initial /t/ follows a root-final consonant, the /t/ assimilatesAssimilation (linguistics)
Assimilation is a common phonological process by which the sound of the ending of one word blends into the sound of the beginning of the following word. This occurs when the parts of the mouth and vocal cords start to form the beginning sounds of the next word before the last sound has been...
in place of articulation
Place of articulation
In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation of a consonant is the point of contact where an obstruction occurs in the vocal tract between an articulatory gesture, an active articulator , and a passive location...
to the preceding consonant, as in /maɭan̻ + tu/ → [maɭan̻t̻u] 'younger sibling (transitive subject)', /pawuɭ + ta/ → [pawuɭʈa] 'at the spirit ground'. However, the sequence /r + t/ undergoes coalescence and surfaces as simple [ʈ], as in /t̻intar + ta/ → [t̻intaʈa] 'at Tjintar'.
When two identical CV sequences meet at a word boundary, they undergo haplology
Haplology
Haplology is defined as the elimination of a syllable when two consecutive identical or similar syllables occur. The phenomenon was identified by American philologist Maurice Bloomfield in the 20th century...
and fuse into a single word in rapid speech, as in /mutikajiŋka kaɭpakatiŋu/ → [mutikajiŋkaɭpakatiŋu] 'climbed into the car' and /parariŋu ŋuɻurpa/ → [parariŋuɻurpa] 'went around the middle'. When a lamino-alveolar consonant or /j/ is followed by /a/ in the last syllable of a word, and the next word begins with /ja/, the word-initial /j/ is deleted and the two adjacent /a/-sounds merge into a long /aː/, as in /ŋal̻a januja/ → [ŋal̻aːnuja] 'they all came' and /wija japura/ → [wijaːpura] 'not west'.
Prosody
Pintupi words are stressStress (linguistics)
In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word, or to certain words in a phrase or sentence. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent is sometimes also used with this sense.The stress placed...
ed on the first syllable. In careful speech, every second syllable after that (i.e. the third, fifth, seventh, etc.) may receive a secondary stress, but secondary stress never falls on the final syllable of the word, as in [ˈt̻akaˌmaraˌkuɳaɻa] 'for the benefit of Tjakamara' and [ˈjumaˌɻiŋkaˌmaraˌt̻uɻaka] 'because of mother-in-law'. However, the particle /ka/ (which indicates a change of subject) is not stressed when it is the first morpheme
Morpheme
In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit in a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word,...
in a clause, as in /kaˈjanu/ '(he) went'.