Book Description

The goal of this work is to describe the changes occurring in the Pitjantjatjara speech of teenagers in Areyonga, a Central Australian community, from both a grammatical and a sociolinguistic point of view. The study is based on data collected in 1994 and 1995. At the time the data was being collected, the Areyonga community had about 200 inhabitants, more than half of them under 25 years of age. A key question of this work is the extent to which Areyonga Teenage Pitjantjatjara is being influenced by contact with English. In order to identify changes in Areyonga Teenage Pitjantjatjara, contemporary speech was compared with several independent descriptions of Traditional Pitjantjatjara (and similar neighbouring dialects). Personal observations of the author and discussions with older Pitjantjatjara people at Areyonga help to round out the picture obtained. The Areyonga population is predominantly young. Most of the older people have left the settlement to return to their community of origin. As a result, many traditional ways of living have not been transmitted fully to the following generation. However there is an undeniable striving to reintegrate traditions into the community and the teaching of the children. Consequently, there is a constant effort to educate children in their first language. What then is the state of Areyonga Teenage Pitjantjatjara? This book aims to answer this question.