ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE IPA Pitjantjatjara

Pitjantjatjara is a dialect of the Western Desert Language (WDL) of central Australia (Douglas 1958). The Western Desert Language is a member of the south-west Pama-Nyungan group. Together with Warnman, it forms the Wati sub-group. It is spoken by 4000–5000 people, and covers the widest geographical area of any language in Australia, stretching from Woomera in central northern South Australia, as far west as Kalgoorlie and Meekatharra and north to Balgo Hills, in Western Australia. The main dialects, which differ most in regards the lexicon but also to some extent in grammar and phonology, include Pitjantjatjara, Yankunytjatjara, Ngaanyatjarra, Ngaatjatjarra, Southern Luritja, Pintupi-Luritja, Kukatja, Gugarda, Ngalia, Wangkatja, Wangkatha, Manyjilyjarra, Kartutjarra and Yurlparija. It is perhaps more accurately conceived of as a dialect chain, whereby a dialect such as Pitjantjatjara is mutually intelligible with its neighbours Ngaanyatjatjarra and Yankunytjatjara, but not with dialects more distant than these, such as Kukatja and Manyjilyjarra. Pitjantjatjara is spoken mainly in the north-west of South Australia, but extends north into the Northern Territory, and west into Western Australia. It shares a dictionary and learner’s guide with Yankunytjatjara (Goddard 1993, 1996). Yankunytjatjara includes the area known as Ayers Rock (or Uluru in Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara). The main speaker in these recordings is Kathleen Windy,1 a 35-year-old Pitjantjatjara woman from Areyonga in the Northern Territory. She works with the community’s young people as a sports and recreation officer, and comes from a family which is active in language maintenance and education. Areyonga is a small community of about 200 people, located about 230 km south-west of Alice Springs. It is a community in which Pitjantjatjara is the first language of infants, with English learned as a second language for communication with wider Australian society. Although Areyonga is considered a Pitjantjatjara community, it is very close to the border of traditional Arrernte land (see Breen & Dobson 2005 for an IPA