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). 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.
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. 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 McConvell 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. Felicity Meakins 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 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. 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. Some lexical specialisation can be noted, for example karnti which means "branch", "stick" or "tree" in Gurindji is generally only used to mean "branch" or "stick" in Gurindji Kriol whereas the Kriol form tri 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. 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.
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