Kriol is an Australian creole which developed out of the contact between European settlers and Indigenous people in the northern regions of Australia. Around 30 000 people speak Kriol. Despite its similarities to English in vocabulary, it has a distinct syntactic structure and grammar, and is therefore a language in its own right.

History

European settlement in the Northern Territory was attempted over a period of about forty years. They finally succeeded in 1870, and an influx of both English and Chinese speakers followed. In order to communicate between these two groups and the local Aboriginal people, pidgins developed all over NT. By 1900, Northern Territory Pidgin English was widespread and well understood.

For NTPE to creolise though, a new community would have to develop where this became the primary language for all speakers. This first occurred in the Roper River Mission (Ngukurr), where cattle stations were established and a township developed.

During this period, the relations between the native and European peoples were somewhat strained- “a war of extermination” was declared by the settlers and the 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. They were determined to rid the lands of native people, and carried out a campaign of extermination.

This nearly annihilated the local population, and also provided one major factor in the development of the creole: drastic social change accompanied by severe communication difficulties.

The second requirement for the development of the creole was a new community, which came about when Anglican missionaries set up a refuge in the Roper River region in 1908. This brought together around 200 people from 8 different groups, who all spoke a multitude of languages. Although the adults were multilingual, due to frequent meetings and ceremonies, the children hadn’t yet acquired the many languages to communicate, so they used the only common language they had-the NTPE. Over their lifetime, these children were almost totally responsible for developing the pidgin into a full language.

Although the relations between the missionaries and Aboriginal people were friendly, the missions were not responsible for the development of Kriol. In fact, they tried to introduce Standard English as the official language for the mission, and although the Aboriginal children used this language in class and to the missionaries themselves, Kriol flourished.

Kriol was not formally recognised as a language until the 1970s, mostly due to linguistic snobbery, that regarded it as a bastardisation of English rather than a language in its own right.

Varieties of Kriol

Kriol is very widely spoken in the Katherine area, but there are minor differences between the varieties of Kriol spoken in particular areas, and certain speakers of Kriol prefer to refer to their language by their unique name. However, linguistically the varieties are quite similar so there is debate about whether they should be named differently, to highlight their different social significance, or whether they should all be lumped into one big category of Kriol. (The differences aren’t actually that large: Mari Rhydwen compares the distinction to the distinction between American and British/Australian spelling.)

Roper River (Ngukuur) Kriol is also spoken in Barunga, and in the Daly River area they speak a variety that is mutually intelligible to these people, but Daly River speakers do not think they speak Kriol. So we then have the question of should they be differentiated as different forms of Kriol to strengthen the identities of the respective regions; or should they be all seen as Kriol, and potentially have a better chance of funding for bilingual education programs.

Current Issues

A problem facing many communities in Northern Australia is that creole speaking children are treated as though they speak English, but speak it badly; so do not have English as a second language programs. And on the other hand, because they are not regarded as having a native mother tongue, are denied access to education in traditional language.

The only official bilingual language program in Kriol exists at Barunga which was established during the Whitlam government, and has successfully included Kriol as both a medium and object of study. Unfortunately, similar Kriol programs have not been established. The reasons for these are partly funding based, but also, in Ngukuur, Kriol is already widely used orally. Although Kriol is widely spoken, its literal translation is minimal, with the exception of the Bible. This means that literacy rates of Kriol are quite low. Apart from practical implications of this, especially if English literacy is also low (i.e. written communication, education opportunities), it means that traditional stories are either not recorded in written form, or the Ngukurr people must rely on texts from Barunga, which may lessen the identity distinction between the two groups. However, Aboriginal cultures are not traditionally rooted in written records, so the lack of written versions of texts may be a function of the oral nature of Aboriginal storytelling.

• Sourced from:

Harris, John (1993) Losing and gaining a language : the story of Kriol in the Northern Territory. In Walsh, M & Yallop, C (Eds) Language and culture in Aboriginal Australia; Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra.

Other creoles around the world are also known as Kriol. See: Kriol language Jump to: navigation, search Belizean Kriol, is one of the main branches of Central American Creole English, closely related to Miskito Coast Creole English, Panamanian Creole English, and Providencia Creole English. ...