Warlmanpa Sign Language facts for kids

Warlmanpa Sign Language was a special way of communicating using hand signs, once used by the Warlmanpa people in northern Australia. It was a very developed Aboriginal sign language, meaning it had many signs and rules, just like spoken languages have words and grammar.

Learning About Warlmanpa Sign Language

The first time anyone officially wrote down information about Warlmanpa Sign Language was thanks to a British expert named Adam Kendon. In 1978, Kendon started traveling around the Northern Territory in Australia. He wanted to learn about and record the different sign languages used by Aboriginal people.

During his travels, he visited many groups, including the Warlpiri, Waramungu, Mudbura, Anmatyerre, Kaytej, and Djingili. He also went to Tennant Creek, which is an area where the Warlmanpa people live.

On a second trip to Tennant Creek, Adam Kendon and other researchers collected about 900 different signs used in Warlmanpa Sign Language. They noticed that Warlmanpa speakers often used both signs and spoken words at the same time in their daily lives.

Where Warlmanpa Sign Language Was Used

The Warlmanpa people have lived in the Northern Territory for many generations. A place called Banka Banka Station, which is west of their traditional lands, became an important gathering spot for them. This is where the sign language was used and observed.

How Signs Are Made

Sign languages use different hand shapes to create signs. In the Central Northern parts of Australia, experts have identified 41 main hand shapes used in various sign languages. Warlmanpa Sign Language uses 29 of these hand shapes.

Warlmanpa Sign Language is different from well-known sign languages like American Sign Language (ASL) or British Sign Language (BSL). In Warlmanpa, people hardly ever use their faces or facial expressions when making signs. Also, most Warlmanpa signs are made with only one hand. The types of hand shapes and the places on the body where signs are made are also quite different from ASL or BSL.

Parts of a Sign

When researchers like Kendon studied Warlmanpa signs, they looked at three main things, similar to how William Stokoe described signs in ASL. They thought of signs as actions and broke them down into:

• What part of the body is doing the action.
• The action itself.
• Where on the body the action happens.

These three parts are called the Sign Actor, Sign Action, and Sign Location.

Sign Actor

This is about the body parts that move to make the sign. It includes how your arm is positioned, the shape of your hand, and which way your hand is facing.

Sign Action

This describes the movement or pattern of movement used to create the sign. For example, is it a tap, a sweep, or a circle?

Sign Location

This tells you where on the body the sign is made. For instance, is it near the head, on the chest, or in front of the body?

How Signs Are Written Down

To write down and study Aboriginal signs, Kendon used a special system based on the Stokoe notation. This system helps linguists record the different parts of a sign.

The system uses a specific order:

• L stands for Sign Location (where the sign is made).
• ap, HS, and OR describe the Sign Actor: arm position, hand shape, and orientation (which way the hand faces).
• AC stands for the Sign Action (the movement).

Sign Language Grammar

In spoken Warlmanpa, many verbs (action words) are made by combining a main verb with a "preverb" (a small word added before it). This way of building words is also seen in Warlmanpa Sign Language. The signs for these verbs often combine in a similar way.

When Sign Language Was Used

In Australia, sign language was often used more by women than by men. For the Warlmanpa people, using sign language was mostly for special events like traditional ceremonies or in situations where speaking was not allowed. This is known as a "speech taboo."

Why Speech Was Not Allowed

Traditional customs in Warlmanpa society, such as initiation ceremonies or times of mourning after someone died, often meant that people had to limit or even stop using spoken words.

Initiation Ceremonies

For young Aboriginal males, an initiation ceremony is a very important event that marks their journey into adulthood. During this time, there were rules about how they could communicate and behave. Sometimes, it was like a state of "semi-death" was observed, because people who had passed away could not speak. In some groups, these rules about not speaking could last for many months.

Mourning

When a family member died, it was a very serious time in Aboriginal society. Relatives of the person who died often had to follow rules about not speaking. These rules were especially strict for female relatives, who might not be allowed to use any spoken words to communicate. In some cases, these restrictions could last for as long as two years.

Avoidance Relationships

In Aboriginal society, there were also "avoidance relationships." This meant certain relatives, like a son-in-law and his mother-in-law, would avoid speaking directly to each other. Sometimes, a special way of speaking called "avoidance speech" was used. While rare, sign language could also be used as a way to communicate in these situations without breaking the avoidance rules.

See also

• Warlpiri Sign Language