Western Desert Verbal Arts Project

This is a collection of the verbal arts and speech styles in the Western Desert of Australia, in particular those of the Ngaanyatjarra and Ngaatjatjarra peoples. The mutually intelligible Western Desert dialects Ngaanyatjarra, Ngaatjatjarra and Pitjantjatjara are still spoken by approximately 2000 people who reside in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands region of south-east Western Australia. Their oral traditions are central to cultural practice and social interaction and they embrace special respectful ways of speaking, sign language and gesture, narrative practices and the use of graphic symbols to accompany sand story narratives and evident in song, dance, and games. These multimodal speech arts are a valued part of the traditions of Western Desert people, yet they are highly endangered. From 2012 - 2017 Ngaatjatjarra linguist Elizabeth Marrkilyi Ellis worked with Inge Kral and Jennifer Green to document these endangered verbal arts. With women and girls we filmed the traditional practice of mirlpa, or sand storytelling, and with younger storytellers we recorded their adaptation of this drawing practice to iPads. Tjuma or other oral stories were also documented, with male and female storytellers. We also recorded children's games and songs 'Tjilkuku - for children' as well as traditional sign language. From 2010-2017 Ngaatjatjarra linguist Elizabeth Marrkilyi Ellis worked with Inge Kral to document Yirrkapiri Wangka an auxiliary respect register, known variously in Western Desert dialects as tjaa nyantulypa, tjaa paku, wawanypa, or anitji, and used openly by all kin in ceremonial and secular contexts. This collection draws on various project sources.From 2010-2011 Ellis and Kral began documentation of the speech register under a Language Recording and Archiving Project for Ngaanyatjarra Media (Aboriginal Corporation) Maintenance of Indigenous Languages and Recordings (MILR) Program Grant (Commonwealth Government).The next phase of research (2012-2013) was supported by ELDP (Endangered Languages Documentation Programme) Small Grant SG0187. Jennifer Green was supported by an ARC (Australian Research Council) Fellowship (DP110102767) and Inge Kral by an ARC DECRA Award (DE120100720).The final phase (2015-2018) was supported by an ARC Discovery Indigenous Fellowship (IN150100018) for Elizabeth Marrkilyi Ellis. And an ARC DECRA Award (DE160100873) for Jennifer Green. Enormous support also came from the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language (CE140100041)