Tiwi language facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Tiwi
Native to	Australia
Region	Bathurst and Melville Islands, Northern Territory
Ethnicity	Tiwi people
Native speakers	2,103  (2021 census)
Language family	Language isolate
Dialects	Traditional Tiwi New Tiwi
AIATSIS	N20
Tiwi (purple), among other non-Pama-Nyungan languages (grey)
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The Tiwi language is an Aboriginal language spoken by the Tiwi people. They live on the Tiwi Islands, which are close to the coast of northern Australia. Tiwi is one of the few Australian languages that children are still learning often. About 10% of Australian languages are still being passed down to children.

Older Tiwi speakers (over 50 by 2005) use a version called Traditional Tiwi. This version is a polysynthetic language, meaning words can have many parts and express a whole sentence. Younger generations have lost some of this complex grammar. Tiwi has about 100 nouns that can be added into verbs. These nouns often look very different from their stand-alone forms.

For a long time, Tiwi was thought to be a language isolate. This means it seemed very different from other languages in mainland Australia. However, new research suggests it might be part of the Gunwinyguan family. This language family includes languages mainly spoken in North Central Australia.

What is the Tiwi Language Called?

The Tiwi language has a few different names. Some names were created by Australian people who lived near the Tiwi speakers. Others were made up by nearby Indigenous communities.

Tunuvivi: The Original Name

Tunuvivi was the first name for the Tiwi language. It was created by the Indigenous people of Melville and Bathurst islands. This name means 'people' or 'we the only people'.

The name Tiwi, which is widely used today, was first suggested by an anthropologist named C.W.M. Hart in 1930. He wanted a clear name for the Melville and Bathurst islanders. The islanders later accepted the name Tiwi. It became an important part of their identity.

Other Names for Tiwi

• Wongak: The Iwaidja community used this name to describe the Tiwi language.
• Nimara: An Australian writer, William Edward Harney, used this term. It means 'to talk' or 'language'.
• Woranguwe/Worunguwe: The Iwaidja community used this name specifically for the Indigenous people of the Melville Islands.

How Tiwi Sounds

The way Tiwi sounds, or its phonology, is unique. The letters used to write the sounds are shown in ⟨brackets⟩.

Tiwi Consonants

Like most Australian languages, Tiwi has four different types of sounds made with the front part of the tongue. These are called coronal stops.

• There are sounds made with the tongue tip at the alveolar ridge (behind your teeth).
• There are also sounds made with the tongue tip curled back, called retroflex sounds.

Tiwi also has a sound like the 'g' in 'bag' but softer, called a velar approximant /ɰ/. This is a bit unusual for an Australian language. Tiwi does not have fricative sounds, like 'f' or 's'.

Tiwi can have groups of consonants together in the middle of words. For example, you might hear sounds like 'mp'.

Tiwi Vowels

Tiwi has four main vowel sounds.

The vowel sound /o/ is not used very often. It doesn't appear at the beginning or end of words. However, there are a few word pairs that show it is a distinct sound:

•  :/jilati/ 'knife'
•  :/jiloti/ 'forever'

Each vowel sound can be pronounced in slightly different ways. Many vowels can sound like /ə/ (like the 'a' in 'about') in words that are not stressed. All vowels are usually short. Long vowels happen when certain sounds are shortened. For example:

•  :/paɻuwu/ [paɻu:] (a place name)

How Tiwi Words are Built

Tiwi is known for its very complex verb structure. It is a polysynthetic language. This means that many parts of a sentence can be combined into one long word. For example:

jinuatəməniŋilipaŋəmat̪at̪umaŋələpiaŋkin̪a

This long word means: 'He came and stole my wild honey this morning while I was asleep'.

About 100 nouns can be added into verbs in Tiwi. These added forms often look very different from the regular nouns.

Verb Structure

Verbs in Tiwi can show many different things. Here are some of the categories they can mark:

Noun Structure

Tiwi, like many Indigenous Australian languages, doesn't always separate nouns and adjectives. Both things and their qualities are described by the same type of word, called a nominal.

Gender in Tiwi Nouns

Tiwi nouns have gender. For people and animals, gender is based on their sex. For objects, gender is based on their shape.

• Things that are thin, small, and straight are usually masculine.
• Objects that are large, round, and full are usually feminine.

Because of this, a Tiwi noun might have a different gender depending on what it refers to. For example, 'grass' is masculine when talking about a single blade of grass. But it's feminine when talking about a large area of grass.

Masculine nouns often end with -ni or -ti. Feminine nouns often end with -ŋa or -ka. Some nouns don't have these endings, but their gender can still be figured out from other words that describe them.

Number in Tiwi Nouns

Tiwi nouns can also show if there is one (singular) or many (plural). Plural nouns often end with -wi or -pi. When a noun is plural, it doesn't show gender anymore.

Some nouns become plural by repeating part of the word. For example, muruntani 'white man' and muruntaka 'white woman' become mamuruntawi 'white people'.

Modern Tiwi Language

Since Europeans arrived, the Tiwi language has changed a lot. This has led to a modern version of the language that is quite different from Traditional Tiwi. Modern Tiwi is simpler in its word structure. It has also borrowed many words from English, including verbs and nouns.

Contact with English has also created other versions of Tiwi, like Children's Tiwi and Tiwi-English. Tiwi people have different levels of skill in these versions. By 1993, only people over 55 spoke Traditional Tiwi. Modern Tiwi was spoken by everyone up to age 30.

Younger people often use English loan words in casual talks. They also use Modern Tiwi in places like classrooms, social groups, and social media. They speak Traditional Tiwi mostly when talking to older family members.

The biggest difference between Traditional and Modern Tiwi is how complex the verbs are. Traditional Tiwi combines many ideas into one verb. Modern Tiwi is simpler, with fewer parts in its verbs.

Here's an example of the same sentence in both versions: She (the sun) is shining over there in the morning (Meaning: 'She is walking over there in the morning with a light')

Traditional Tiwi

Modern Tiwi

Modern Tiwi also often leaves out the parts of a verb that show the object, while Traditional Tiwi keeps them.

The exact number of Traditional Tiwi speakers is not known for sure. One survey suggested there were only about 35 speakers of the traditional version, and none of them could speak it perfectly.

Tiwi Words

Here are some basic words in the Tiwi language from Melville Island:

Tiwi Language and Traditional Medicine

The Tiwi community's traditional medicine is based on using nature's resources. It also connects to their belief that nature is linked to a person's body. Tiwi people believe that the foods they hunt and gather help them stay healthy. Men and women share the work of finding "bush foods" like fish, turtle eggs, mussels, yams, and mangrove worms.

One idea in Tiwi medicine is about tarni, which means general "sickness." The Tiwi people believed that yams with sharp, pointed tips carried this tarni sickness. They thought if pregnant women ate them, the sharp tips would hurt the womb and kill the baby.

The Tiwi community also uses plants to treat common sicknesses. For example, the pandanus plant is thought to help with diarrhea. People chew and swallow the middle part of its leaves. If leaves from the center of the plant are placed on a person's forehead for a few days, it is believed to help with headaches.

Sample Text

Here is an example of the Tiwi language:

Tayikuwapimulungurrumi wutailapwarrigi-jiki arnuka kiyi wutaakiyamama kwiyi tiwi-ma kiyi rayit. Wuta-wurlimi pungintaga kiyi punyipunyi kiyi wiyi tuwim-ajirri nginingaji pirajuwi.

This means: (All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.)

This is from Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

See also

In Spanish: Idioma tiví para niños