Language
The Warlpiri language is a member of the group known as the Yapa languages, the name Yapa coming from the word for 'Aboriginal person' in most of the languages, its closest relative being Warlmanpa. Most Warlpiri-speakers are bilingual with English. Many also speak one or more of: Arrernte, Jaru, Western Desert Language, Warumungu, or other neighboring languages. Indigenous sign language is also an important component of Warlpiri communication; all of these languages had highly developed sign forms.
Read more about this topic: Warlpiri People
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“The “sayings” of a community, its proverbs, are its characteristic comment upon life; they imply its history, suggest its attitude toward the world and its way of accepting life. Such an idiom makes the finest language any writer can have; and he can never get it with a notebook. He himself must be able to think and feel in that speech—it is a gift from heart to heart.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“There is no such thing as a language, not if a language is anything like what many philosophers and linguists have supposed. There is therefore no such thing to be learned, mastered, or born with. We must give up the idea of a clearly defined shared structure which language-users acquire and then apply to cases.”
—Donald Davidson (b. 1917)
“The language I have learnt these forty years,
My native English, now I must forgo,
And now my tongue’s use is to me no more
Than an unstringèd viol or a harp.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)