Gurindji language

Patrick McConvell writes: "Traditional Gurindji today is only generally spoken in private contexts between older people, although it is occasionally used in speeches and newly composed songs."[6] Patrick McConvell also states: "Gurindji has been taught intermittently for short periods as a subject in the local school over the last twenty-five years but mostly has had no role in the curriculum or in official community functions.[6] Gurindji is spoken by approximately 592 people, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2006 Census, in Northern Territory, Australia.The switching of languages was noticed by Patrick McConvell between the 1960s and 1980s, and is thought to have emerged from the establishment of the cattle stations by the non-Indigenous colonists.Bound pronouns also attach to the inflecting verb to cross reference subjects and objects for person and number.[15] An example found in National Indigenous Languages Survey Report is the Gurindji word for 'law' (yumi) "encompasses not just what we might call civil and criminal 'law' but the ways of behavior and social control with regard to kin and the land that was bestowed by the ancestors and Dreamings.As Felicity Meakins discovered, "Gurindji doesn't have terms for left and right, but has 24 different words each for north, south, east and west.
Northern TerritoryAustraliaGurindjiNgarinymanMalnginWandjiraBilingaraLanguage familyPama–NyunganNgumpin–YapaNgumbinBilinarraISO 639-3GlottologAIATSISPama–Nyungan languageGurindji Kriolmixed languageGajirrabengNgaliwurruJaminjungMiriwungWardamanPama-Nyungan languagesNon-Pama-NyunganNgumpin-YapaVictoria RiverDagaraguKalkaringidialect chainbilabialretroflexpalataldiphthongfricativesPeripheralLaminalApicalLabialAlveolarLateralRhoticApproximantCentralcoverbnominativeaccusativedativeergativelyFelicity MeakinssuffixesencliticsLocativeAllativeAblativenon-configurationalitycliticWalter de GruyterAustralian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies