Gurindji Kriol is a mixed language which is spoken by Gurindji people in the Victoria River District of the Northern Territory (Australia). It is mostly spoken at Kalkaringi and Daguragu which are Aboriginal communities located on the traditional lands of the Gurindji. Related mixed varieties are spoken to the north by Ngarinyman and Bilinarra people at Yarralin and Pigeon Hole. These varieties are similar to Gurindji Kriol, but draw on Ngarinyman and Bilinarra which are closely related to Gurindji (Eastern Ngumpin languages).This page is based on Meakins 2012b

Gurindji Kriol emerged in the 1970s from pervasive code-switching practices. It combines the lexicon and structure of Gurindji and Kriol. Gurindji is a highly endangered language of the Ngumpin-Yapa subgroup (Pama-Nyungan family) and Kriol is an English-lexifier creole language spoken as a first language by most Aboriginal people across northern Australia (with the exception of Arnhem Land and Daly River area).

Gurindji Kriol exhibits a structural split between the noun phrase and verb phrase, with Gurindji contributing the noun structure including case-marking, and the verb structure including tense-aspect-mood (TAM) auxiliaries coming from Kriol. In this respect, Gurindji Kriol is classified as a verb-noun (V-N) mixed language. Other examples of V-N mixed languages include Michif and Light Warlpiri. The maintenance of Gurindji within the mixed language can be seen as the perpetuation of Aboriginal identity under massive and continuing cultural incursion.

Structural feature Language of origin Lexical feature Language of origin word order Kriol N-body parts Gurindji TAM auxiliaries Kriol N-colours Kriol verb suffixes Kriol N-artefacts traditional (Gurindji), new (Kriol) case suffixes Gurindji N-people Kriol/Gur other noun suffixes Gurindji N-kin parents and their siblings (Kriol), siblings, grandparents, in-laws (Gurindji) negation Kriol N-food Kriol/Gur regular pronouns Kriol/Gur N-plants Gurindji emphatic pronouns Gurindji N-animals Kriol/Gur possessive pronouns Gurindji V-state Kriol/Gur interrogative pronouns Kriol V-motion Gurindji demonstratives Kriol/Gur V-bodily functions Gurindji conjunctions Kriol/Gur V-impact Gurindji interjections Gurindji V-basic Kriol determiners Kriol V-verbalising Kriol/Gur

Background

Gurindji Kriol originated from contact between non-Indigenous colonists and the Gurindji people. From 1855 onwards, the traditional lands of the Gurindji and neighbouring groups were seized by colonists who were searching for good cattle pastures. After initial attempts to cull the original inhabitants, cattle stations were set up and the remaining Gurindji people were brought to work on the stations in slave-like conditions with other Aboriginal groups. In 1966, the Gurindji initiated a workers' strike to protest against their poor conditions of employment and ultimately regain control of their traditional lands. Their campaign was called the Wave Hill Walk-off and went on for nine years, resulting in the first successful land claim by an Aboriginal group in Australia. Today the Gurindji continue to live on their traditional lands in two main communities - Kalkaringi and Daguragu.Meakins 2008a and see also Frank Hardy's 'The Unlucky Australians' and Deborah Roses' 'Hidden Histories'

The linguistic practices of the Gurindji are closely tied to these social circumstances. Before colonisation the Gurindji were multilingual, speaking the languages of neighbouring groups with whom they had familiar and ceremonial connections. The establishment of the cattle stations by colonisers saw the introduction of the cattle station pidgin and later Kriol into the linguistic repertoire of the Gurindji. In the 1970s Patrick McConvellMcConvell's home page: https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/mcconvell-psee McConvell 1985, 1988 observed that code-switching between Kriol and Gurindji was the dominant language practice of Gurindji people. It is likely that this code-switching and a certain amount of levelling between Gurindji and closely related neighbouring languages such as Ngarinyman and Bilinarra provided fertile ground for the formation of the mixed language. At this time, similar changes to local linguistic ecologies occurred in other places in northern Australia with Kriol becoming the dominant language in many areas such as Timber Creek and Katherine. Yet in Kalkaringi, a mixed language emerged from this situation.see McConvell and Meakins 2005; McConvell, 2008; Meakins 2011c Felicity MeakinsMeakins's home page: http://www.slccs.uq.edu.au//index.html?page=127733&pid=124851Meakins 2008b:86-87 argues that maintenance of Gurindji elements in the mixed language relates closely to the land rights movement and can be considered an expression of the persistence of their ancestral identity. Additionally McConvell(McConvell 2007) suggests that the homogeneity of the linguistic situation (one traditional language spoken at Kalkaringi) may have also aided the maintenance of Gurindji.

Current linguistic situation

Gurindji Kriol is situated within a complex picture of multilingualism, contact and code-switching. Gurindji continues to be spoken by older people and a neighbouring traditional Australian language, Warlpiri is also used by people of Warlpiri heritage. Standard Australian English is the language of government services and the school, though its use is generally restricted to these domains. Kriol and Aboriginal English are spoken with Aboriginal visitors from other communities.see Meakins 2008b In this respect, Gurindji Kriol continues to be spoken alongside Gurindji and Kriol, and is a 'symbiotic' mixed language. In addition, code-switching continues to be an everyday practice at Kalkaringi, and it is common to find code-switching between Gurindji and Kriol, and between Gurindji Kriol and its source languages.

Lexicon

Lexically there is a mix between Kriol and Gurindji. Despite the verb-noun structural split, some verbs are derived from Kriol and others from Gurindji. Similarly nouns from both languages are present. In general, based on a 200 word Swadesh list, 36.6% of vocabulary is derived from Kriol and 35% finds its origins in Gurindji. The remaining 28.4% are synonymous forms from both languages, where the choice of word depends on a number of factors including the interlocutors. For example, more Gurindji vocabulary is used when addressing older Gurindji people or in the presence of outsiders.Meakins & O’Shannessy, 2005:45 Some lexical specialisation can be noted, for example which means "branch", "stick" or "tree" in Gurindji is generally only used to mean "branch" or "stick" in Gurindji Kriol whereas the Kriol form is used to mean "tree".

Phonology

The phonological system of Gurindji Kriol is relatively stratified, i.e. it has maintained separate Gurindji and Kriol phoneme inventories, syllable structures and many phonological processes.see Jones, Meakins, and Buchan 2011; Jones, Meakins, and Muawiyath to appear

In terms of vowels, Gurindji Kriol has a 5 vowel system. All Gurindji words contain only 3 vowel phonemes /ɪ/, /ɐ/ and /ʊ/ with diphthongs the result of combinations of vowels with glides in fast speech, for example /ɐw/ > [ɐʊ]. Kriol words make use of five vowel phonemes /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ in addition to /ɪ/, /ɐ/ and /ʊ/, plus diphthongs and long vowels.

FrontCentralBack Close Mid Open

The consonant inventory is a complex fusion of Gurindji and Kriol consonants. Words of Gurindji origin contain a three-way coronal contrast for stops, nasals and laterals, and a distinction between a post-alveolar rhotic and an apical trill (sometimes pronounced as a tap). Kriol-derived words contrast with those from Gurindji in containing fricatives. No voicing distinction is made for stops or fricatives in either Gurindji- or Kriol-derived words; voicing depends on position within word or utterance, and place of articulation.

Bilabial Alveolar Post-alveolar Alveopalatal Velar Stop Fricative Nasal Lateral Rhotic, Glide

Stress is word initial for words of both Gurindji and Kriol origin. The maintenance of the two phonological systems is more obvious in syllable structure. A range of structures are permissible in words of both origins, e.g. CV and CVC, however VC syllables are only allowed in Kriol words. Gurindji and Kriol source words also diverge in their use of stop-final consonant clusters. Gurindji words allows syllable-final consonant clusters, though the cluster combination is rather restricted. The first consonant must be a liquid and the final consonant, a non-coronal stop or velar nasal. Even in the more acrolectal forms of Kriol words, final consonant clusters are never present at the surface level. Finally different phonological processes apply to the different component languages of Gurindji Kriol. For example, in Kriol words, the plosive series is occasionally hypercorrected to fricatives of a similar place of articulation. This process never occurs in words of Gurindji origin.

Noun phrase

The Gurindji Kriol noun phrase consists of a head plus a number of potential modifiers. Potential heads are: nouns, nominalised adjectives, emphatic pronouns and demonstratives (this/that); and modifiers are determiners (in/definite, plural/singular) and adjectives. Heads and modifiers can be distinguished by their ability to take case marking. Heads are case-marked, and modifiers are not. The order of noun phrase constituents is relatively fixed: DET - MOD - HEAD. Finally Gurindji Kriol is an optional ergative language where the transitive subject is optionally marked ergative and objects are unmarked.Meakins 2009; Meakins and O'Shannessy 2010; O'Shannessy and Meakins to appear

Gurindji Kriol contains many nominal suffixes, most of which are derived from Gurindji. These include case suffixes, number marking and derivational morphology. A number of these suffixes have Kriol-derived periphasic counterparts. For example, the privative suffix can also be expressed by gat no 'has no'.

Type Form Origin Type Form Origin Ergative Gurindji And Gurindji Locative Gurindji Privative Gurindji Dative Gurindji Comparative Gurindji Allative Gurindji Factive Gurindji Ablative Gurindji Alone Gurindji Comitative Gurindji Another Gurindji Plural Gurindji Nominaliser Kriol Dual Gurindji Adjective Kriol Paucal Gurindji Focus Kriol Associative , Gur/Kriol Topic Gurindji Dual Assoc Gurindji Restrictive Gurindji

Pronouns

Regular pronouns distinguish person (1st, 2nd and 3rd) and number (singular, dual and plural), and further make a distinction between inclusive and exclusive 1st person pronouns, though syncretism exists between subject forms. All subject pronouns are derived from Kriol and object pronouns find their origins in both languages. A general reflexive/reciprocal pronoun is derived from the Kriol reflexive pronoun. Emphatic pronouns are derived from Gurindji and are classified as nominals because they can be case-marked. Possessive pronouns are drawn from Gurindji and are also used as dative objects, e.g. nyununy 'your, to you'. (Note that this paradigm needs some work).

Subject Object Emphatic Possessive 1stperson singular exclusive inclusive plural exclusive inclusive 2ndperson singular dual plural 3rdperson singular dual plural reflexive/reciprocal

Verb phrase

The verb phrase consists of a tense auxiliary1 followed by a modal auxiliary2 and the main verb3. The auxiliary verbs are derived from Kriol and the main verb can come from either Gurindji or Kriol:

Gurindji Kriol distinguishes between past (bin) and present tense (zero-marked for nouns, -m for pronouns) and marks future time using a potential marker (garra) which is also used to express obligation. Many of the auxiliaries also have reduced forms which attach to subject pronouns, such as ai-rra > ai garra 'I will'.