Scripture Resources

General Language Information:

The Ngaanyatjarra language is spoken by 1,200 people in the Warburton Ranges in Western Australia.

There is no ‘f’, ‘h’, ‘s’, ‘v’, ‘x’ or ‘z’ sounds in the Ngaanyatjarra language however there are 3 ‘t’ sounds (symbolised by ‘t’, ‘tj’ and ‘rt’) there are 2 ‘r’ sounds (symbolised by ‘r’ and ‘rr’) and 4 ‘n’ sounds (symbolised ‘n’, ‘rn’, ‘ny’ and ‘ng’). Often one Ngaanyatjarra word may have several different meanings in English for example ‘wanka’ can mean ‘alive’ or ‘awake’ or even ‘uncooked’, and ‘mirri’ can mean ‘unconscious’ or ‘dead’. Conversely a single English word or term may have different meanings in Ngaanyatjarra, for example the term ‘to choke’ in English can mean ‘ lirrirntanku’ which refers to choking another person while ‘ngakalku’ refers to choking on something caught in the throat.
The Ngaanyatjarra language only has four words for numbers, these are;  kutju ‘one’; kutjarra ‘two’;  marnkurrpa ‘three’ or ‘a few’ and pirni ‘many’. Larger numbers are made by combining the smaller numbers, eg Kutjarra-kutjarra (‘four’), kutjarra-marnkurrpa (‘five’).