Pitta Pitta language

Pitta Pitta
Region	Queensland
Extinct	2 cited in 1979[1]
Language family	Pama–Nyungan Karnic Palku Pitta Pitta
Dialects	Pitta-Pitta Ringu-Ringu Rakaya Ngulupulu/Karanja Kunkalanja Mayawarli (Maiawali)[2]
Signed forms	Pitha Pitha Sign Language
Language codes
ISO 639-3	pit – inclusive code Individual code: yxa – Mayawali (Maiawali)
Glottolog	pitt1247  (Pitta Pitta)[3]
AIATSIS[4]	G6 Pitta Pitta (other dialects listed from here)

Pitta Pitta (also known under several other spellings) is an extinct Australian Aboriginal language. It was spoken around Boulia, Queensland.

Pituri

The name pituri for the leaves chewed as a stimulant by traditional Aboriginal people is thought to derive from the Pitta Pitta word pijiri.^[5][6]

Status

In 1979, Barry J. Blake reported that Pitta Pitta was "virtually extinct", with only two speakers remaining – Ivy Nardoo of Boulia, and Linda Craigie of Mount Isa.^[1] It is now considered unlikely that any speakers remain.^[7]

Sign language

The Pitta Pitta had well-developed a signed form of their language.^[8]

References

1. Barry J. Blake (1979). "Pitta-Pitta". In Robert M. W. Dixon & Barry J. Blake. Handbook of Australian Languages 1. John Benjamins Publishing Company. pp. 183–242. ISBN 90-272-0512-4.
2. RMW Dixon (2002), Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development, p xxxvii
3. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Pitta Pitta". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
4. Pitta Pitta (other dialects listed from here) at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
5. Philip A. Clarke (2007). "The power of plants". Aboriginal People and their Plants. Rosenberg Publishers. pp. 96–110. ISBN 978-1-877058-51-6.
6. Philip A. Clarke (2008). "Making plant names". Aboriginal Plant Collectors: Botanists and Australian Aboriginal People in the Nineteenth Century. Rosenberg Publishers. pp. 42–57. ISBN 978-1-877058-68-4.
7. "Pitta Pitta: an extinct language of Australia". Ethnologue. SIL International. Retrieved 28 July 2011.
8. Adam Kendon (1988). Sign Languages of Aboriginal Australia: Cultural, Semiotic and Communicative Perspectives. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-36008-1.

• Roth, Walter E. (1897). The expression of ideas by manual signs: a sign-language. (p. 273–301) Reprinted from Roth, W.E. Ethnological studies among the North-West-Central Queensland Aborigines. London, Queensland Agent-Generals Information Office, 1897; 71–90; Information collected from the following tribes; Pitta-Pitta, Boinji, Ulaolinya, Wonkajera, Walookera, Undekerebina, Kalkadoon, Mitakoodi, Woonamurra, Goa. Reprinted (1978) in Aboriginal sign languages of the Americas and Australia. New York: Plenum Press, vol. 2.

External links

• Bibliography of Pitta Pitta people and language resources, at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies