Arandic languages

Arandic is a family of Australian Aboriginal languages consisting of several languages or dialect clusters, including the Arrernte (Upper Arrernte) group, Lower Arrernte (also known as Lower Southern Arrernte), Pertame language (also known as Southern Arrernte) and Kaytetye.

Languages

• Upper Arrernte (or just Arrernte) dialect cluster, with five or six main dialects, with the most dominant being Central or Eastern Arrernte, which is spoken in and around Alice Springs (Mparntwe) itself.
• Lower Arrernte, also known as Alenjerrntarpe and Lower Southern Arrernte, was spoken by the people around the Finke River area, but it is now extinct. The last speaker was Brownie Doolan, from whom Gavan Breen managed to write up a dictionary of roughly 1000 words.^[1] According to AIATSIS, this was a clearly distinct language.
• Pertame, also known as Southern Arrernte, is from the country south of Alice Springs, along the Finke River, north and north-west of the location of speakers of Lower Arrernte.^[2] With only 20 fluent speakers left by 2018,^[3] the Pertame Project is seeking to retain and revive the language, headed by Pertame elder Christobel Swan.^[4] Renowned artist Erlikilyika (Jim Kite) was a Pertame speaker. Ethnologue classes Pertame as a variant name for Lower Southern, but other sources vary in their classifications and descriptions of this language.
• Kaytetye, spoken near Barrow Creek and Tennant Creek by the Kaytetye people,^[5] had only 120 speakers in the 2016 census, and the number has been decreasing.^[6]

Differing classifications

There are differing opinions as to which are dialects and which separate languages, among linguists and among the Arrernte people themselves.

• Koch (2004) only distinguished two dialects, Upper Arrernte and Katetye.
• Glottolog defines the Arandic group as comprising five Aranda (also known as Arrernte)^[7] dialects, plus two distinct languages, Kaytetye (Koch, 2006) and Lower Southern (or just Lower) Aranda, an extinct language.^[8]
• Ethnologue defines eight Arandic languages and classifies them slightly differently.^[9]

Proto-language

Proto-Arandic and Pre-Arandic reconstructions from Koch (2004):^[10]

Verbs

Plants

Animals

References

1. Kearney 2007.
2. Lower Arrernte.
3. To save a dying language 2018.
4. Pertame Project.
5. Breen, Gavan (2001). "Chapter 4: The wonders of Arandic phonology". In Simpson, Jane; Nash, David; Laughren, Mary; Austin, Peter; Alpher, Barry (eds.). Forty years on: Ken Hale and Australian languages (pdf). Pacific Linguistics 512. ANU. Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies. (Pacific Linguistics). pp. 45–69. ISBN 085883524X.
6. "Kaytetye". Ethnologue. Retrieved 10 June 2019.
7. Note:"Aranda" is a simplified, Australian English approximation of the traditional pronunciation of the name of Arrernte [ˈarəɳ͡ɖa].(Turpin, Myfany (August 2004). "Have you ever wondered why Arrernte is spelt the way it is?". Central Land Council. Retrieved 15 June 2019.)
8. "Arandic". Glottolog. Retrieved 11 June 2019.
9. "Arandic". Ethnologue. Retrieved 11 June 2019.
10. Koch, Harold (2004). "The Arandic subgroup of Australian languages". In Claire Bowern & Harold Koch, eds., Australian Languages: Classification and the Comparative Method. John Benjamins Publishing Company. doi:10.1075/cilt.249.10koc

Sources

• Kearney, Simon (20 September 2007). "Another language faces sunset in dead centre". The Australian. Archived from the original on 14 October 2011.
• "Lower Arrernte". Mobile Language Team. Archived from the original on 30 September 2018. Retrieved 15 June 2019.
• "To save a dying language". Alice Springs News Online. 23 May 2018. Retrieved 9 June 2019.
• "Pertame Project". Call for Australian languages and linguistics. Archived from the original on 1 April 2020. Retrieved 9 June 2019.

Bibliography

• Dixon, R. M. W. (2002). Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development. Cambridge University Press.