Upper Arrernte language

Varieties

The varieties are as follows:

A Southern Arrernte (Pertame) is listed by Dixon, but not by Bowern, who also lumps together Central and Eastern.

There is much debate on whether these are dialects of an Arrernte language, or separate languages, both among linguists and among the Arrernte people themselves. Lower Arrernte, however, is clearly distinct.

Consonants

/ɰ~ʁ/ is described as velar ([ɰ]) by Breen & Dobson (2005), and as uvular ([ʁ̞]) by Henderson (2003).

Stops are unaspirated. Prenasalized stops are voiced throughout; prestopped nasals are voiceless during the stop. These sounds arose as normal consonant clusters; Ladefoged states that they now occur initially, where consonant clusters are otherwise forbidden, due to historical loss of initial vowels; however, it has also been argued that such words start with a phonemic schwa, which may not be pronounced (see below).

Vowels

All dialects have at least /ə a/.

The vowel system of Arrernte is unusual in that there are only two contrastive vowel phonemes, /a/ and /ə/. Two-vowel systems are very rare worldwide, but are also found in some Northwest Caucasian languages. It seems that the vowel system derives from an earlier one with more phonemes, but after the development of labialised consonants in the vicinity of round vowels, the vowels lost their roundedness/backness distinction, merging into just two phonemes. There is no allophonic variation in different consonantal contexts for the vowels. Instead, the phonemes can be realised by various different articulations in free variation. For example, the phoneme /ə/ can be pronounced [ɪ ~ e ~ ə ~ ʊ] in any context.

Phonotactics

The underlying syllable structure of Arrernte is argued to be VC(C), with obligatory codas and no onsets. Underlying phrase-initial /ə/ is realised as zero, except before a rounded consonant where, by a rounding process of general applicability, it is realised as [ʊ]. It is also common for phrases to carry a final [ə] corresponding to no underlying segment.

Among the evidence for this analysis is that some suffixes have suppletive variants for monosyllabic and bisyllabic bases. Stems that appear monosyllabic and begin with a consonant in fact select the bisyllabic variant. Stress falls on the first nucleus preceded by a consonant, which by this analysis can be stated more uniformly as the second underlying syllable. And the frequentative is formed by reduplicating the final VC syllable of the verb stem; it does not include the final [ə].

Orthography

Arrernte orthography does not write word-initial /ə/, and adds an e to the end of every word.

Grammar

Arrernte has fairly free word order but tends towards SOV. It is generally ergative, but is accusative in its pronouns. Pronouns may be marked for duality and skin group.

Pronouns

Pronouns decline with a nominative rather than ergative alignment:

Body parts normally require non-possessive pronouns (inalienable possession), though younger speakers may use possessives in this case too (e.g. akaperte ayenge or akaperte atyinhe 'my head').

Sign language

The Arrernte have a highly developed sign language.

Arrernte in school

In most primary schools in Alice Springs, students (of all races and nationalities) are taught Arrernte (or in some cases Western Arrernte) as a compulsory language, often alongside the French or Indonesian languages. Additionally, most Alice Springs high schools give the option to study Arrernte language throughout high school as a separate subject, and it can also be learned at Centralian College as part of a TAFE course. Future plans are that it will be included as a university subject.

Arrernte in the workplace

Many Alice Springs workplaces require that employees learn at least basic Arrernte to communicate effectively with the large numbers of Arrernte people. Many workplaces offer learning of Arrernte as an option and will fund the course.