Documentation and description of Ngarinyin, a language of the Kimberley region of Western Australia

Stef Spronck, Australian National University

Project Details:

Individual Graduate Studentship. Duration: 2011-2012. £14,225

Project Summary:

For centuries Ngarinyin has been the main language of the Northern central Kimberley Region of Western Australia, being spoken over an area of up to 45,000 km2. Nowadays, however, only about a dozen of elderly speakers use it as their preferred language and Ngarinyin is no longer passed on to children. This project aims to document elicited and un-elicited Ngarinyin speech and conversation and supplement existing mid-20th century sound recordings of Ngarinyin with sorely missed metadata. The project will also collect more data on an extensive, recently discovered avoidance register in the language.