1. Aboriginal English
Jack Fursdon

2. Different types of Aboriginal English
Australian Aboriginal Creole's and English’s
Australian
Indigenous
Languages, nfd Kimberly area
7% languages
other australian 1%
indigenous
Arnhem Land
languages
and Dlay River
12%
Region
Languages Western Desert
15% languages
13%
Yolngu Matha
10%
Arandic
11%
Northern
Cape York Peninsula Desert Fringe
Torres Strait Island
Languages Area
languages
5% Languages
13%
13%
Love the lingo

3. What is Aboriginal English
• Based on a mix of English and aboriginal
languages
• Used in rural aboriginal communities
• Differs from Australian English linguistically in
almost every way
• Many words have entirely different meanings in
Aboriginal English
• Eg: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/awaye/
• Itunes: Yothu Yindi: Treaty, tribal voices, Djapana

4. Differences between Aboriginal English
and Standard English
• Words
• Sounds
• Grammatical
• Lexical
• Discourse
• Pragmatics

5. Words
• Words of Aboriginal English often reflect the
cultures of the region
• E.g. Policeman: monatj in Western
Australia, booliman in
Queensland, gunji or gunjibal in New South
Wales
• Can have completely different meanings to
English languages
• E.g. mother means 'the woman who gave birth to
a person, and that woman's sisters'

6. Sounds
• Leaving out and adding of letters
• E.g. enry’s at (Henry’s hat)
• E.g. Huncle Henry ( Uncle Henry)
• http://www.pawmedia.com.au/library/huntin
g-185

7. Grammatical and Lexical
• Many Prepositions are left out
• Different constructions of negatives
• Simplified tag questions
• Question structure
• Sentences formed by joining two phrases
• Noun Phrase + there

8. Grammatical and Lexical ctd
• No third person
• Replacement of “that” for “what”
• Inconsistent number system
• Doubly marked past tense

9. Discourse
• Long, loosely connected structures
• Clausal marks are absent
• Verb chaining
• Word Order

10. Pragmatics
• Questions not used to seek information
• Use of indirect questioning
• Silence

11. Reference List
• Aedes, D. (2011), “Aboriginal English”. Available
http://www.hawaii.edu/satocenter/langnet/definitions/aboriginal.html 19th
October 2011
• The university of Adelaide. (2011), “Notes on spelling and pronunciation”.
Available http://www.adelaide.edu.au/kwp/language/spelling/ 19th October 2011
• Australian Government: department of foreign affairs and trade.
(2011), “Indigenous languages”. Available
http://www.dfat.gov.au/facts/indigenous_languages.html 19th October 2011
• Burridge, K and De Laps, D. (2010) Love the Lingo. Victoria: VATE
For sources on specific Aboriginal languages:
• Nathan, D. (2007), “Aboriginal languages of Australia”. Available
http://www.dnathan.com/VL/austLang.htm 19th October 2011

12. The End
Thanks for listening