The Warlpiri language is spoken by about 3000 of the Warlpiri people in Australia's Northern Territory. The Warlpiri are an indigenous Australian (or Aboriginal) ethnic group, many of whom speak a language also called Warlpiri. ... Motto: None Other Australian states and territories Capital Darwin Administrator Ted Egan Chief Minister Clare Martin (ALP) Area 1,420,968 km² (3rd)  - Land 1,349,129 km²  - Water 71,839 km² (5. ...

Phonology

Vowels

Warlpiri has a standard three-vowel system similar to that of Classical Arabic, with a length distinction creating a total of six possible vowels. A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. ... A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. ... A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. ... A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. ... An open vowel is a vowel sound of a type used in most spoken languages. ... Arabic is a Semitic language, closely related to Hebrew and Aramaic. ...

Consonants

As shown in the chart, Warlpiri distinguishes five positions of articulation, and has oral and nasal stops at each position. The oral stops have no phonemic voice distinction, but display voiced and unvoiced allophones; stops are usually unvoiced at the beginning of a word, and voiced elsewhere. In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. ... Alveolars are consonants articulated with the tip of the tongue against the alveolar ridge, the internal side of the upper gums (known as the alveoles of the upper teeth). ... Retroflex consonants are articulated with the tip of the tongue curled up and back so the bottom of the tip touches the roof of the mouth. ... Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the middle or back part of the tongue raised against the hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth). ... Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate (the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum). ... A stop or plosive or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. ... A nasal consonant is produced when the velum—that fleshy part of the palate near the back—is lowered, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. ... In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. ... In phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator is thrown against another. ... Laterals are L-like consonants pronounced with an occlusion made somewhere along the axis of the tongue, while air from the lungs escapes at one side or both sides of the tongue. ... Approximants are speech sounds that could be regarded as intermediate between vowels and typical consonants. ... In spoken language, a phoneme is a basic, theoretical unit of sound that can distinguish words (i. ... Phoneticians define phonation as use of the laryngeal system to generate an audible source of acoustic energy, i. ... In Quebec, an allophone (French or English. ...

Warlpiri is remarkable for its complete lack of fricative consonants. Fricative consonants are produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together (e. ...

The consonant listed in the table as a retroflex flap is actually an unusual consonant, possibly unique to Warlpiri. The tongue-tip begins in retroflex position, but then moves forward rapidly, flapping against the alveolar ridge.

Syllables and stress

Warlpiri syllables are quite constrained in structure. All syllables begin with a single consonant; there are no syllable-initial consonant clusters, and no syllable begins with a vowel. After the consonant comes a single long or short vowel, which is sometimes followed by a single closing consonant. Open syllables are much more common than closed ones. No syllable ends with a stop or with the retroflex flap /ɽ/. This article discusses the unit of speech. ...

The most common kind of consonant cluster occurs when a syllable ends with a nasal consonant and the next syllable begins with the corresponding stop, but other clusters like /rk/ and /lp/ also occur.

Stress is not generally distinctive, but assigned by rule. Polysyllabic words receive primary stress on the first syllable, with secondary stresses tending to occur on alternate syllables thereafter; this rhythm may be broken by the structure of the word, so that there are sometimes three-syllable stress groups.

Vowel harmony

Words

No Warlpiri word begins with alveolar consonant; the first consonant of a word must be bilabial, palatal, retroflex, or velar.

All Warlpiri words end in vowels; a word that might otherwise end in a consonant is usually "corrected" by adding a meaningless suffix, usually /-pa/.

Orthography

Since the 1950's, Warlpiri has been written in the Roman alphabet using a system originally devised by Lothar Jagst and subsequently modified slightly. Warlpiri orthography uses only ordinary letters, with no accent marks. It is close to IPA, deviating in the following ways:

1. Long vowels are written by doubling the vowel letter: ii, aa, uu.
2. Retroflex consonants are written with digraphs formed by prefixing r to the usual alveolar symbol: rt, rn, rl.
3. The palatal stop is written j.
4. Other palatals are written with digraphs formed by suffixing y to the usual alveolar symbol: ny, ly. The palatal approximant is written y.
5. The velar nasal is written ng.
6. The alveolar trill is written rr.
7. The retroflex flap is written rd.
8. The retroflex approximant is written r.

To these basic rules are added two adjustments to make the orthography easier to use.

1. The indicators y (for palatal) and r (for retroflex) are often dropped if redundant in consonant clusters that share articulation position. Examples: nyj is written nj, rnrt is written rnt.
2. At the beginning of a word, the retroflex indicator r is omitted. This does not produce ambiguity, because no Warlpiri word begins with a plain alveolar consonant. Example: rtari "foot" is written tari.

Lexicon

Verbs

Warlpiri verbs are built from a few hundred verb roots, distributed among five conjugation classes. Most verb roots belong to just two of these classes; the other three classes have only a few roots each.

A large class of modifying prefixes, or preverbs, are used to create verbs with specific meanings. For example, the verb root parnka- means "run" when used by itself, while wurulyparnka- means "scurry into hiding". The preverb wuruly- is used with a few other verb roots to form other verbs of hiding or seclusion. Preverbs are sometimes reduplicated for emphasis or to create a meaning distinction.

Most preverb-verb combinations are a fixed part of the lexicon; new combinations cannot be created freely. But there are a few preverbs that are very productive and can be combined with many different roots, and some roots will accept almost any preverb.

The verb root is followed by a tense suffix. There are five of these for each conjugation class, as shown in the following table. (Some optional variations have been omitted.)

Nouns

Warlpiri nouns are assembled from thousands of roots, with a rich array of derivational techniques such as compounding and derivational suffixes. [Expand, give examples.]