Kartutjarra language explained

Kartutjarra
Also Known As:	Kardutjara
Region:	near Jigalong, Western Australia
Ethnicity:	Kartudjara
Speakers:	21
Date:	2016 census
Speakers2:	6 speakers of pure Kartujarra (2006)
Ref:	aiatsis
Familycolor:	Australian
Fam1:	Pama–Nyungan
Fam2:	Wati
Sign:	Kartutjarra Sign Language
Lc1:	mpj
Ld1:	Martu Wangka
Glotto:	kart1247
Glottorefname:	Kartujarra
Aiatsis:	A51
Elp:	6689
Elpname:	Kartujarra

Kartutjarra (Kardutjara) is one of the Wati languages of the large Pama–Nyungan family of Australia. It is sometimes counted as a dialect of the Western Desert Language, but is classified as a distinct language in Bowern.^[1]

It is one of the components of the Martu Wangka koine.

Sign language

See main article: Australian Aboriginal sign languages. Most of the peoples of central Australia have (or at one point had) signed forms of their languages. Among the Western Desert peoples, sign language has been reported specifically for Kardutjara.^[2] Signed Kardutjara is known to have been well-developed.^[3]

Notes and References

Claire Bowern and Quentin Atkinson. 2012. Computational phylogenetics and the internal structure of Pama-Nyungan. Language 88. 817-845. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Miller, Wick R. (1978). A report on the sign language of the Western Desert (Australia). Reprinted in Aboriginal sign languages of the Americas and Australia. New York: Plenum Press, 1978, vol. 2, pp. 435–440.
Kendon, A. (1988) Sign Languages of Aboriginal Australia: Cultural, Semiotic and Communicative Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.