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Australian Kriol, also known as Roper River Kriol, Fitzroy Valley Kriol, Australian Creole, Northern Australian Creole or Aboriginal English, is an English-based creole language that developed from a pidgin used initially in the region of Sydney and Newcastle in New South Wales, Australia, in the early days of European colonization. Later, it was spoken by groups further west and north. The pidgin died out in most parts of the country, except in the Northern Territory, where the contact between European settlers, Chinese people and other Asian groups, and the Aboriginal Australians in the northern regions has maintained a vibrant use of the language, which is spoken by about 30,000 people. Despite its similarities to English in vocabulary, it has a distinct syntactic structure and grammar. It is a language in its own right and is distinct from Torres Strait Creole.

History

The first records of the progenitor to Kriol, a pidgin called Port Jackson Pidgin English, are found from the 1780s, with the pidgin being used for communication between the white settlers around Port Jackson and the local indigenous population. During that period, relations between the native Australians and Europeans were strained and often violent. Aboriginal people fiercely defended their lands. However, the control of lands was eventually seized by the settlers when a cattle company acquired much of the area. The settlers became more determined to take full control of the land from the native people and carried out a campaign to do so.

European settlement in the Northern Territory was attempted over a period of about forty years. Settlement finally succeeded in 1870 with the founding of Darwin, and an influx of both English and Chinese speakers followed. To communicate between both groups and the local Aboriginal people, pidgins developed throughout the territory based on Port Jackson Pidgin English (PJPE). By 1900, PJPE had developed into Northern Territory Pidgin English (NTPE), which was widespread and well understood. Then, by 1908, NTPE would creolize into Australian Kriol, starting first in the Roper River Mission (Ngukurr), where cattle stations and a township developed and spreading from there. This process of creolization entailed a massive increase in the lexicon as well as a complexification of the grammar of the language. This creolization began in the early 1870s in the Roper River area and it expanded from there. This creolization was significantly sped up by policy changes made after World War 2 as well as changes caused by World War 2. When NTPE creolized not all NTPE speakers would start speaking Kriol for those in more peripheral parts of the Kriol speaking area their NTPE was heavily influenced by English so when it creolized it became a dialect of Australian Aboriginal English heavily influenced by Kriol.

The resettlements and land seizures that nearly annihilated the indigenous population were major factors in the development of Australian Kriol, as they created drastic social change. Not all speakers of NTPE would switch over to Australian Kriol though as many after 1908 continued to speak NTPE. Another factor in the development of Kriol was the establishment of a community of Anglican missionaries in the Roper River region in 1908. That brought together around 200 people from eight different aboriginal ethnic groups who spoke different native languages, although adult members of these groups were multilingual because of frequent meetings and ceremonies. Children from these groups were educated in English, necessitating use of a lingua franca. Children from these communities disseminated English features throughout their communities. Although the relations between the missionaries and Aboriginal people were friendly, the missionaries were not responsible for the development of Kriol. In fact, they tried to introduce Standard English as the official language for the mission, which the Aboriginal children used in class and with the missionaries, but Kriol still flourished.

Kriol was not recognized as a language until the 1970s, as it was regarded as a dialect of English.

In her first speech in April 2013, Josie Farrer spoke in both Kriol and Gija, marking the first ever use of an indigenous language in the Western Australian Parliament.

Morphology and syntax

As a general rule, the grammar of Kriol is a simplified version of that found in English, meaning that it is analytic, with words generally having only one form and additional meaning derived not from changing words but from word order and added new words.

Parts of Speech

The parts of speech which Australian Kriol has are: verbs, modals, tense markers, adverbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, demonstratives, quantifiers, articles, plural markers, prepositions and particles.

Suffixes

Various types of words in Kriol have one or more suffixes associated with them with certain suffixes being used for several different types of words.

In Australian Kriol, many spatial words from English have been transformed into suffixes attached to verbs they interact with. The specific suffixes vary between dialects but remain mostly similar.

These spacial suffixes and the non spacial suffixes can be combined in words like pikimap (pick up) which contains the suffixes im and ap.

Word order

Kriol uses an SVO word order exclusively. In Kriol the order of possessor and possessum varies, with it being evenly split between possessor possessum and possessum possessor.

In Kriol word order is evenly split between verb object adverb and Adverb verb object. Word order is used over inflections or subject object affixation or verbs to specify meaning.

Pronouns

Kriol pronouns differentiate between different between first, second and third person, as well as between singular, plural, and dual plural inclusive and exclusive pronouns first person. The language also differentiates between subject, object, independent pronoun, and adnominal possessive. There are also reflexive and reciprocal pronouns.

Reduplication

In Kriol, reduplication can be used both on the root of a verb and on the entire verb to make the verb a progressive verb.

Phonology

Austral Kriol also has 7 dipthongs.

Phonotactics

Australian Kriol phonotactics dictates that consonant clusters at the start of words must be a plosive followed by a liquid, rhotic or glide consonant, the only exception is an alveolar fricative followed by a plosive. Consonant clusters at the end of words are nonexistant except for the clusters /lb/ and /ks/.

Orthography

The Kriol alphabet is based on the English alphabet, but varies not only in what letters and digraphs are used, but also in the rules for said letters and digraphs. Each phoneme in Kriol can only be spelled one way, unlike in English orthography, where several different spellings can be used to make the same sound. Kriol, unlike English, also uses a phonetic orthography in which words are spelled to match how they sound.

The Kriol alphabet contains 21 letters, 11 consonant digraphs, 5 vowel digraphs and 5 punctuation marks.

Letters: A, B, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, Q, R, S, T, U, W, Y

Consonant Digraphs: Ly, Ng, Ny, Rd, Rl, Rn, Rr, Rt, Sh, Th, Tj

Vowel Digraphs: Ai, Au, Ei, Oi, Ou

Punctuation Marks: Period (.), Comma (,), Question mark (?), Exclamation mark (!), Quotation marks (" ")

Dialects

Post-creole contiuum

Kriol varies on an Post-creole contiuum of dialects that are more similar to Australian Aboriginal English and those that differ more from it. Dialects less similar to English, referred to as Heavy Kriol, have more words from Australian Aboriginal languages as well as more divergent word order and a more divergent phonology. Less divergent dialects, referred to as Light Kriol, have more English suffixes, a less divergent phonology, and more English words as opposed to Aboriginal ones. Light and Heavy kriol also exist on a spectrum with there being many mesolects in between these two.

Those who speak Light Kriol tend to be Indigenous Australians who are more assimilated into broader Anglo-Australian Society while Indigenous Australian who speak Heavy Kriol tend to be Indigenous Austral who are less assimilated into broader society and tend to speak an Indigenous Australian language as their first language.

Australian Kriol's intelligibility by English speakers varies with Light Kriol being more intelligible than Heavy Kriol, but either way mutual intelligibility is low. While an English speaker might understand the basic gist of what a Kriol speaker is saying they won't be able to interpret specific details.

Geographic dialects

Aside from this acrolectic spectrum Australian Kriol also has geographic dialects. These dialects are made up of larger regional dialects which are further subdivided into local dialects, often based out of a single settlement. The communities of Roper River, Barunga, Fitzroy Valley, Halls Creek, Daly River, Belyuen, Turkey Creek-Wyndham-Kununurra area, Barkley Tableland and possibly those around the Victoria River form their own geographic dialects. With each of these dialects having smaller local dialects, though these are unstudied.

The dialects are differentiated by phonology, grammar, and lexicon. As a rule dialects in more populated less isolated areas are more influences by English and are on the Light Kriol side of the post-creole contiuum while those in less populated more isolated areas are on the Heavy Kriol part of the spectrum. The speakers of any particular dialect usually are descended from speakers of a particular indigenous language so the use more words from that specific indigenous language, though these words will be understood by speakers of other dialects but just aren't used.

Of the various geographic dialects, those spoken in the Roper River and Barunga area are best documented.

Sociolects

In addition to these to two ways of dividing Australian Kriol it can also be divided into sociolects. The first of these is a form of youth slang referred to as Strit tok (street talk) and it is usually considered to be a perversion of "good" Kriol. The second kind is imitation Kriol spoken is called Borunga Kriol and is mostly non Kriol speaking Australians trying to speak Kriol to Kriol speakers. These speakers fall into two categories: Those who are learning Kriol but don't yet speak it so when trying to speak Kriol they end up speaking a "English-Kriol interlanguage" and the second kind is people who do not speak Kriol trying to imitate it by speaking an intentionally broken and simplified English, this "Mock Kriol" is not at all Kriol and is rather an incorrect imitation of it.

Creolization

There is also a creole language based off a mix of Kriol and Gurindji called Gurndji Creole, which was formed by pervasive code switching between Kriol and Gurnidji by Gurnidji inhabitants of Victoria River District. There is another Creole language called Light Warlpiri formed by rapid code-switching between Kriol, English, and Warlpiri by the inhabitants of the town of Lajamanu.

Lexicon

The primary contributing language of Kriol is English, but it has received and continues to receive influence from Chinese Pidgin English, Alawa, Marra, Ngalakgan, Wandarrang, Mangarrayi, Ngandi, Nunggubuyu, Jawoyn, Dalabon, Rembarrnga, Barunga, Jaminjung, Ngarinyman, Wardaman, Walmatjari, Djaru, Miriwoong, and Gija.

Status

The Kriol language, unlike many other aboriginal languages, is healthy with most of its speakers under the age of 30. 99% of Kriol speakers are Australian Aboriginals, with only 0.8% being part of other groups. This shows that Kriol is an insider language only used within a community. Kriol speakers mainly use the language orally, with low literacy rates, though there are groups and initiatives working to increase the usage of Kriol literacy and usage in media by teaching Kriol literacy, creating new works in Kriol, and translating preexisting works into Kriol.

There are various views and opinions on the Kriol language. Some deny that it is even its own language, simply referring to it as English or insisting those who speak Kriol are just speaking English poorly. Others view the language as a threat because it encroaches on other older aboriginal languages, while some take pride in it and try to support it. Government support for Kriol is limited, with there being only two bilingual language programs in Barunga and Ngukurr; though the one in Barunga has closed, they both successfully included Kriol as both a medium and an object of study.

Code switching between Kriol and English as well as between Light and Heavy Kriol is very common with Light Kriol and English being used in more formal situation while Heavy Kriol is used more with other Aboriginals and in less casual situation, similar to the code switching that occurs between more or less formal English.

Decreolization

In Kriol speaking areas that are on the edge of the Kriol speaking region there has been decreolization with speaking speaking Australian Aboriginal English but with many Kriol features. These happens most often with mixed race Aboriginal Australians living in larger town with larger European populations. For a long time these people looked down on their Aboriginal heritage and viewed Kriol as an incorrect form of English that needed to be eradicated. And because of those two factors their Kriol would transition into English. While the racism has become less prevalent the continous contact with English has meant that in some communities while the Aboriginal population can speak Kriol Aboriginal English is main language in use with Europeans and with each other.

The other case of decreolization was when people who learned Kriol early in life moved to an area where they never used Kriol so their Kriol would transition into English because they were only exposed to English.

The ongoing decreolization though is not widespread enough to pose a major threat to Kriol the birthrate of Kriol speakers is high and decreolization only effects a minority in roughly 6 out of 250 at least partially Kriol speaking communities.

Media

Many famous pieces of media such Shakespeare and Waltzing Matilda have been translated into Kriol, and many books have been published in Kriol. ABC and several other organizations currently make news in Kriol. Online there are several videos and texts available in Kriol, as well as resources for learning the language. There is also currently an Australian Kriol Misplaced Pages currently on the Wikimedia Incubator.

Bible translation

On 5 May 2007, the first complete edition of the Bible in the Kriol language was launched at Katherine in the Northern Territory. Translation took over 29 years. It was undertaken by a team of native Kriol speakers led by Rev. Canon Gumbuli Wurrumara and specialists from the Society for Australian Indigenous Languages.

The Kriol Bible is the first complete edition of the Bible in any Indigenous Australian language. The publication was a joint venture of The Bible Society, Lutheran Bible Translators, The Church Missionary Society, the Anglican church, Wycliffe Bible Translators, and the Australian Society of Indigenous Languages.

Sample text

References

1. Australian Bureau of Statistics (2021). "Cultural diversity: Census". Retrieved 13 October 2022.
2. Australian Kriol at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) [REDACTED]
3. P1 Australian Kriol at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
4. The Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures. Oxford.
5. Sharpe, Margret C. Kriol - An Australian Language Resource. p. 178.
6. ^ Studies, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (5 August 2024). "Indigenous languages in Australian parliaments". aiatsis.gov.au. Retrieved 8 October 2024.
7. ^ Harris, John W. (1 January 1988). "Northern Territory Pidgin English: A Lexical Study". English World-Wide. 9 (1): 77–99. doi:10.1075/eww.9.1.06har. ISSN 0172-8865.
8. ^ Sandefur, John (1986). Kriol of Northern Australia A Language Coming of Age (10 ed.). Summer Institute of Linguistics Australian Aborigines Branch Darwin. pp. 14–15, 46–48, 56–59.
9. ^ Harris, John W. (1986). NORTHERN TERRITORY PIDGINS AND THE ORIGIN OF KRIOL. The Australian National University. pp. 302–304, 322.
10. ^ "APiCS Online -". apics-online.info. Retrieved 17 August 2024.
11. ^ Nicholls, Sophie (2009). Referring Expressions and Referential Practice in Roper Kriol (Northern Territory, Australia). pp. 22–28.
12. ^ Sandefur, John R. (1984). Work Papers of Sil-Aab. Summer Institute of Linguistics, Australian Aborigines Branch. pp. 32, 49–50, 69, 74–75, 155–156. ISBN 0-86892-297-8.
13. Margaret, Sharpe (1978). Papers in Pidgin and Creole Linguistics (4th ed.). pp. 182–185.
14. ^ "APiCS Online - Survey chapter: Kriol". apics-online.info. Retrieved 26 June 2024.
15. Schultze-Berndt, Eva; Angelo, Denise (2013), "Kriol structure dataset", Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures Online, Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, retrieved 17 August 2024
16. "UQ eSpace". espace.library.uq.edu.au. Retrieved 17 August 2024.
17. "A New Language Spoken By Just 350 People Has Evolved In Australia's Outback". IFLScience. 25 January 2024. Retrieved 15 September 2024.
18. ^ "APiCS Online - Survey chapter: Kriol". apics-online.info. Retrieved 26 June 2024.
19. ^ "2021 Census: Kriol a growing language - Meigim Kriol Strongbala". meigimkriolstrongbala.org.au/en_au/. Retrieved 15 August 2024.
20. ^ "While many Indigenous languages are disappearing, one has more speakers than ever". SBS News. Retrieved 15 August 2024.
21. Carroll, Peter J. 2004. From the beginning to Proverbs. The Bible Translator 55.4: 491–497.
22. "The Holy Bible in the Kriol language of Australia" (PDF). ebible.org.
23. "Bible Gateway passage: Genesis 1:1-2 - New International Version". Bible Gateway. Retrieved 24 June 2024.

• Harris, John (1993) "Losing and gaining a language: the story of Kriol in the Northern Territory" in Walsh, M and Yallop, C (eds), Language and Culture in Aboriginal Australia, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra.

External links

• Meigim Kriol Strongbala Bilingual Kriol-English website providing news and information on Kriol.
• Ngukurr Community site for the main Aboriginal Community producing Kriol language materials.
• Kriol language resources
• Kriol-English Dictionary Retrieved 25 December 2014.
• Crittenden, Stephen (2 May 2007). "First complete Bible translation in an indigenous language". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 25 December 2014.
• The Kriol Bible, full text Retrieved 13 January 2020.
• Kriol materials from the Barunga bilingual program at the Living Archive of Aboriginal Languages
• Roper Gulf Regional Council Retrieved 25 December 2014.

• English-based pidgins and creoles of Australia
• Indigenous Australian languages in the Northern Territory
• Subject–verb–object languages
• Languages attested from the 1900s
• Pidgins and creoles of Australia
• Non-Pama-Nyungan languages
• Indigenous Australian languages in Western Australia
• Indigenous Australian languages in Queensland