Luritja dialect
Language of the Luritja people, an Aboriginal Australian group
The Luritja dialect is the language of the Luritja people, an Aboriginal Australian group indigenous to parts of the Northern Territory and Western Australia. It is one of several dialects in the Western Desert language group.
Name
The name luritja is thought to derive from the Arrernte word lurinya, 'foreigner'. It appears to have originally been applied by Arrernte speakers to people of the Western Desert Language group who had relocated onto Arrernte lands in the process of moving (or being moved) from remote desert areas to the region closer to Alice Springs. Over time younger generations have taken on the term as their ethnonym, possibly unaware of its origin.
Area
The Luritja lands include areas to the west and south of Alice Springs, extending around the edge of Arrernte country. The area surrounding Papunya, including Mount Liebig is often referred to as Papunya Luritja, both in land and language, while areas to the south-east around Aputula and Maryvale are often referred to as Titjikala Luritja (Maryvale is the name of the cattle station on Titjikala land). The area around Ulpanyali and Watarrka National Park (Kings Canyon) is also referred to as Luritja country and the dialect of Luritja spoken there is referred to as Southern Luritja (it is identical to Titjikala Luritja). The variety of Luritja spoken at Kintore is often referred to as Pintupi/Luritja.
Dialects
Pintupi-Luritja
Papunya Luritja
Papunya Luritja is the variety of Luritja spoken around the community of Papunya, and also west through Mount Liebig to Kintore.
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This entry incorporates text from “Luritja dialect” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.