Introduction

This dictionary has been prepared with three types of users in mind.

Firstly, there are Ngaanyatjarra and Ngaatjatjarra speakers. They may want to check the spelling of words that they know, or find out how these words are expressed in English. Younger speakers may also want to find out the meanings of words that they don’t know, but have heard older people use. With these users in mind, we have tried to express at least some of the definitions in fairly simple English.

Secondly, there are people who want to learn to speak Ngaanyatjarra and Ngaatjatjarra. With these users in mind, we have tried to include some information about how words go together: this is mostly by means of the example sentences. The grammatical information we have provided is as non-technical as possible. We recommend the Ngaanyatjarra Language Learning Course (details page 19) as a good place to begin learning Ngaanyatjarra.

The third group of users we have considered are scientific researchers. We have not catered particularly to their needs, believing that they will be able to find what they need from the information provided for other users. However, we have included the scientific names of plants, birds and animals wherever possible.

The dictionary contains approximately 6,500 headwords and sub-headwords.

Location

Ngaanyatjarra and Ngaatjatjarra are spoken in the central desert area of Western Australia along the tri-state border. See the map below.

Area where Ngaanyatjarra and Ngaatjatjarra are spoken. Used with permission: IAD Press, Alice Springs

Ngaanyatjarra speakers have also migrated to Cosmo Newbery and Laverton in the Eastern Goldfields area of Western Australia.

Ngaanyatjarra (approximate pronunciation Nah.na.tha.rra) is technically a dialect of the widespread Western Desert language (which belongs to the Wati Sub-group of the South-West Group of the Pama-Nyungan family). The speakers consider it to be a separate language, and it could be argued that this is the case since it has only 70% of the same words as the neighbouring Pitjanytjatjarra language (official spelling Pitjantjatjara).

In the times before the establishment of the Warburton Mission, Ngaanyatjarra was spoken around the area of present-day Warburton and perhaps as far east as the Jameson Range. Ngaatjatjarra was spoken in the Jameson and Blackstone ranges area, and and as far as the Rawlinson Ranges to the north and to Lake Hopkins to the north-east.  Pitjantjatjara was spoken at Wingellina in the Tomkinson Ranges, and in areas to the east and north-east.

The names of these languages are to some extent nick-names, which were probably given to them by neighbouring groups. Pitjantjatjara means the language having the word pitja, ‘come’ or ‘go’.

i.e.:      Pitjanytja-tjarra

come-having.

This name served to distinguish the Pitjantjatjara from their near neighbours to the north and east, the Yankunytjatjara, who have the word yankunytja for ‘come’ or ‘go’.

Because not only the Pitjantjatjara, but also the Ngaatjatjarra and the Ngaanyatjarra, have the word pitja meaning ‘come’, a further distinction is made on the basis of the word ‘this’, since Ngaanyatjarra has the word ngaanya for ‘this’, and Ngaatjatjarra has the word ngaatja for ‘this’, while Pitjantjatjara has the word nyangatja for ‘this’.

The differences between Ngaanyatjarra and Ngaatjatjarra are very small and speakers of both dialects understand each other without difficulty. Since a large number of Ngaatjatjarra, and even some Pitjantjatjara, lived at Warburton for quite long periods between 1935 and 1968, children who grew up at Warburton began to speak Ngaanyatjarra, even though their parents may have been Ngaatjatjarra or Pitjantjatjara speakers. More recently, with the development of smaller communities in the original Ngaatjatjarra speaking area, children are tending to speak with particular Ngaatjatjarra forms.

You may have heard the Ngaanyatjarra language referred to as ‘Wangkayi’ (‘Wongi’). White people, especially, use this term to refer to the language of the Aboriginal people of the Eastern Goldfields and beyond. (Although these Aboriginal people prefer to call themselves and their language ‘Wangkatja’)

Ngaanyatjarra and Ngaatjatjarra, of course, originally had no written form. It was first scientifically studied by Wilfrid Douglas, a linguist of the United Aborigines Mission, in the early 1950s. He devised the alphabet for the language and published several books. We are personally indebted to him for introducing us to the language.