Languages: Aboriginal English and Kriol (in Tennant Creek)
The varieties of English spoken in Tennant Creek can best be characterised on a continuum, ranging from heavily creolised English (CE) at one end, to light Aboriginal English (AE), close to standard Australian English (SAE) at the other. The variety a speaker uses depends on the situation, interlocutors present and the varieties that a speaker has in their repertoire. Speakers generally use very light Aboriginal English in interactions with Non-Indigenous people. Standard Australian English (SAE) is the language of education and institutions. Through media such as television, videos and popular music, people hear SAE and other varieties of English.
Some speakers use Aboriginal English most of the time, but include some features of creolised English in interactions with speakers whose style is generally heavier. In some speech networks, heavily creolised English is the code of in group comunication. Given that these varieties exist in the speech community of Aboriginal people in Tennant Creek, there is great variablity. A single stretch of discourse may include features from lighter and heavier ends of the continuum. These sub-systems do not appear to operate independantly in speaker useage.
Speakers also use items from Warumungu, such as lexicon, some verbs and nominal morphology. Older people tend to be full speakers of Warumungu, while most people under 40 years of age are partial speakers and so their use of Warumungu is always within otherwise CE or AE discourse.
Sound system
The phonology of heavily creolised English is influenced by Indigenous languages. Affricates and fricatives, which appear in English only, are generally replaced by corresponding stops. Consonant clusters are separated with a weak vowel. Dipthongs alternate with short clear vowels. The phonology of Aboriginal English is closer to English, though features mentioned in heavily creolised English appear.
Verb Phrase
Word order in Aboriginal English and creolised English is SVO, though the object may be moved to clause initial position, for topicalisation.
An object pronoun referent may also be topicalised with a postposed referential noun phrase.
Transitivity is marked on verbs with the suffix -im.
1) Jangay dei gatim .
Shanghay(s) they have.
2) Dei bin gitim im, nunuwan babiwan.
They got it, (the) little baby (bird)
If reference is made to an event that occurred prior to the time of speaking verbal auxillary 'bin' can be used with a verbal element . For future or potential state, garra, gata tends to be used with verbal element .
3) An nyili garra pokim im na.
And ( the) prickle is going to poke him (he going to step on the prickle)
Progressive aspect is indicated by the suffix - in, ing .
4) Oni wanbala running na.
only one (person) is running now
Durative and iterative aspect is indicated by the suffix -bat, or -abat , which Sandefur (1991), discussing Kriol spoken to the north of the Tennant Creek region, claims has an overlap in meaning with the progresssive, and an interweaving of distribution and co-occurrence. The iterative meaning of -bat is more common than the durative meaning and can either refer to repetition of an action or plurality of participants. The iterative aspect is associated with creolised English, as it tends to occur more frequently in this speech style.
5) Tubla bin jasimbat dat julaka.
They (2) were chasing that bird
6) "Maami, dei bin bildimabat mi".
" Mummy, they were beating me"
Verbless clauses are used to describe states perceived as existing at the time of speaking.
7) Dis imkay karnanti.
T his (is) his mother
8) Dei brabli cruel.
They are very cruel.
9) Weya im na? weya im kina?
where (is) he now? where (is) he (going)
Noun phrase
Nouns need not be marked for number or definiteness in AE and CE, (see examples 1,2,3, 5) but determiners can be used to express these.
(10) Tribala kartti bin jasimbat.
Adjectives generally appear with the nominalising suffix -wan (example 2), and in the case of numerals -bala (example 10)
2. References about Kriol in general <up>
Capell, A. (1979). Languages and creoles in Australia. Sociologia Interationalis, 17.
Davidson, G. (1977). A preliminary report on traditional culture learning and Aboriginal pidgin as part of the school's bilingual program at Bamyili, N.T.Unpublished manuscript, Canberra.
Fraser, J. (1977). A phonological analysis of Fitzroy Crossingchildren's pidgin. In J. Hudson (Ed.), Five Papers in Australian Phonologies: Work papers SIL-AAB A.1 (pp. 145-204). Darwin.
Fraser, J. (1977). A tentative short dictionary of Fitzroy Crossing children's pidgin. From data collected Oct-Nov 1974; revised March 1977.Unpublished manuscript, Darwin.
Graber, P. (1987). Kriol in the Barkly Tableland. Australian Aboriginal Studies, 2, 14-19.
Graber, P. (1987). The Kriol particle 'na'. Working papers in language and linguistics, 21, 1-21.
Hall, R. A. (1943). Notes on Australian Pidgin English. Language, 19, 263-267.
Harris, J. (1986). Northern Territory pidgins and the origin of Kriol. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
Harris, J. (1993). Losing and gaining a language: The story of Kriol in the Northern Territory. In M. Walsh & C. Yallop (Eds.), Language and culture in Aboriginal Australia. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press.
Harris, J. (2004). Kriol - The creation of a new language. In S. Romaine (Ed.), Language in Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Harris, J., & Sandefur, J. (1983). Creole languages and the use of Kriol in Northern Territory schools. Unicorn, 9(3), 249-264.
Harris, J., & Sandefur, J. (1984). The Creole language debate and the use of creoles in Australian schools. The Aboriginal Child at School, 12(1), 8-29.
Harris, J., & Sandefur, J. (1985). Kriol and multilingualism. In M. Clyne (Ed.), Australia, meeting place of languages (Vol. 92, pp. 257-264). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
Hudson, J. (1977). Some common features in Fitzroy Valley Kriol.
Hudson, J. (1981). Fitzroy Valley Kriol wordlist. Unpublished manuscript.
Hudson, J. (1983). Grammatical and semantic aspects of Fitzroy Valley Kriol. Darwin: SIL.
Hudson, J. (1983). Transitivity and aspect in the Kriol verb. Papers in pidgin and creole linguistics (Pacific Linguistics A-65), 3, 161-175.
Marret, M. (1987). Kriol and literacy. Australian Aboriginal Studies, 2, 69-70.
Meehan, D. (1980). Kriol literacy: Why and how ... Notes on Kriol and the Bamyili school bilingual education program. Barunga, N. T.: Bamyili Press.
Meyerhoff, M. (1996). Transitive marking in contact Englishes. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 16, 57-80.
Mühlhaüsler, P. (2004). Overview of the pidgin and creole languages of Australia. In S. Romaine (Ed.), Language in Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Munro, J. (2005). Substrate language influence in Kriol: The application of transfer constraints to language contact in northern Australia. Unpublished PhD, University of New England, Armidale.
Murtagh, E. (1979). Creole and English Used as Languages of
Instruction with Aboriginal Australians., Stanford University, Stanford University.
Rhydwen, M. (1996). Writing on the backs of blacks: Voice, Literacy and community in Kriol fieldwork. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press.
Richards, E., & Fraser, J. (1975). A comparison and contrasting of the noun phrases of Walmatjari with the noun
phrases of Fitzroy Crossing children's pidgin. Paper presented at the ALS 7, Sydney.
Rumsey, A. (1981). On some syntactico-semantic consequences of
homophony in northwest Australian Pidgin/Creole English. Unpublished manuscript.
Sandefur, J. (1979). An Australian creole in the Northern Territory: A description of Ngukurr-Bamyili dialects (Part 1). Darwin: SIL.
Sandefur, J. (1981). Kriol: An Aboriginal language. Hemisphere, 25, 252-256.
Sandefur, J. (1981). Kriol: Language with a history. Northern Perspective, 4(1), 3-7.
Sandefur, J. (1981). The stepchild who began Cinderella: Pidgin English comes into its own. On Being, 8(8), 43-45.
Sandefur, J. (1982). Kriol and the question of decreolisation. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 36, 5-13.
Sandefur, J. (1982). When will Kriol die out? In G. A. MacKay & B. A. Sommer (Eds.), Application of linguistics to Australian Aboriginal contexts (ALAA Occasional Papers) (pp. 34-43). Melbourne: Melbourne University.
Sandefur, J. (1984). A language coming of age: Kriol of North Australia. Unpublished MA Thesis, University of Western Australia, Perth.
Sandefur, J. (1984). A resource guide to Kriol. In J. Sandefur (Ed.), Papers on Kriol (Vol. 10, pp. 107-140). Darwin: SIL.
Sandefur, J. (1985). Aspects of the socio-political history of Ngukurr (Roper River) and its effects on language change. Aboriginal History, 1-2, 205-219.
Sandefur, J. (1985). Dynamics of an Australian creole system. Pacific Linguistics, A 72, 195-214.
Sandefur, J. (1986). Mission life, mission education and the rise of creole language. Journal of Christian Education, 85, 23-34.
Sandefur, J. (2004). A sketch of the structure of Kriol. In S. Romaine (Ed.), Language in Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sandefur, J., & Harris, J. (1986). Variation in Australian Kriol. In J. Fishman (Ed.), The Fergusonian impact (pp. 180-190). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Sandefur, J., & Sandefur, J. (1981). An introduction to conversational Kriol. In Working papers of SIL - AAIB Series B. Darwin: SIL.
Sharpe, M. (1974). Report on Roper Pidgin and the possibility of its use in a bilingual program, in Report on the
Third Meeting of the Bilingual Education Consultative Committee held in Darwin on 27-29 November 1974. Darwin: Department of Education.
Sharpe, M., & Sandefur, J. (1977). A brief description of Roper Creole. In E. Brumby & E. Vaszolyi (Eds.), Language problems and Aboriginal education (pp. 51-60). Mt Lawley: College of Advanced Education.
Steffensen, M. (1975). Bamyili creole.Unpublished manuscript, Madison, Wisconsin.
Steffensen, M. (1977). A description of Bamyili creole.Unpublished manuscript, Urbana, Illinois.
Steffensen, M. (1977). Double talk: When it means something and when it
doesn't. Papers from the 13th Regional Meeting, Chicago Linguistic Society, 603-611.
Steffensen, M. (1979). Reduplication in Bamyili Creole. Papers in
Pidgin and Creole Linguistics No. 2. Pacific Linguistics, A57, 119-133.
Thompson, H. (1976). Creole as the vernacular language in a bilingual program at Bamyili school in the Northern Territory. Torrens College of Advanced Education, Adelaide.